The word liberty in the mouth of Mr. Webster sounds like the word love in the mouth of a courtesan. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
No one has a prosperity so high and firm that two or three words can't dishearten it. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
An orator or author is never successful till he has learned to make his words smaller than his ideas. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It is in bad taste," is the most formidable word an Englishman can pronounce. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“Words so vascular and alive they would bleed if you cut them, words that walked and ran.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“Use language what you will, you can never say anything but what you are.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“Thought is the bud, language the blossom and action the fruit behind it.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I do not hesitate to read. all good books in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable-any real insight… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Observe how every truth and every error, each a thought of someone's mind, clothes itself with societies, houses, cities, language, ceremonies, newspapers — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
When the eyes say one thing, and the tongue another, a practiced man relies on the language of the first. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every discourse is an approximate answer: but it is of small consequence, that we do not get it into verbs and nouns,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There are men whose language is strong and defying enough, yet their eyes and their actions ask leave of other men to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Solitary converse with nature; for thence are ejaculated sweet and dreadful words never uttered in libraries. Ah! the spring days, the summer… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Nature is a language and every new fact one learns is a new word; but it is not a language taken to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If men would avoid that general language and general manner in which they strive to hide all that is peculiar, and would… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A man is reputed to have thought and eloquence; he cannot, for all that, say a word to his cousin or his… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
This immediate dependence of language upon nature, this conversion of an outward phenomenon into a type of somewhat in human life,never loses… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech. Life… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Thus inevitably does the universe wear our color, and every object fall successively into the subject itself. The subject exists, the subject… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
So in writing, there is always a right word, and every other than that is wrong. There is no beauty in words… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. The whole human family is bathed with an element of love… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Eyes are bold as lions,--roving, running, leaping, here and there, far and near. They speak all languages. They wait for no introduction;… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
In the learned journal, in the influential newspaper, I discern no form; only some irresponsible shadow; oftener some monied corporation, or some… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
All writing is by the grace of God. People do not deserve to have good writing, they are so pleased with bad.… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Culture implies all which gives the mind possession of its own powers, as languages to the critic, telescope to the astronomer. Culture… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“The poets made all the words and therefore language is the archives of history, and, if we must say it, a sort… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The mystic must be steadily told,-All that you say is just as true without the tedious use of that symbol as with… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If we will not interfere with our thought, but will act entirely, or see how the thing stands in God, we know the particular… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will or against his will he draws his portrait to the eye of his… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Consideration is the soil in which wisdom may be expected to grow, and strength be given to every up-springing plant of duty. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Another success is the post-office, with its educating energy augmented by cheapness and guarded by a certain religious sentimentin mankind; so that the power… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
No man can be criticised but by a greater than he. Do not, then, read the reviews. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Coal lay in ledges under the ground since the Flood, until a laborer with pick and windlass brings it to the surface. We may… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image