The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture. Language is fossil poetry. As the limestone of the… — 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
No one has a prosperity so high and firm that two or three words can't dishearten it. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every word we speak is million-faced or convertible to an indefinite number of applications. If it were not so we could read… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation -rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I cannot find language of sufficient energy to convey my sense of the sacredness of private integrity. — 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
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
Words are finite organs of the infinite mind. They cannot cover the dimensions of what is in truth. They break, chop, and… — 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
By virtue of this science the poet is the Namer, or Language-maker, naming things sometimes after their appearance, sometimes after their essence,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action. Only so much do… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
History no longer shall be a dull book. It shall walk incarnate in every just and wise man. You shall not tell… — 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
“Thought is the bud, language the blossom and action the fruit behind it.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The motive of science was the extension of man, on all sides, into Nature, till his hands should touch the stars, his… — 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
Bare lists of words are found suggestive to an imaginative and excited mind. — 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