There is, in all great poets, a wisdom of humanity which is superior to any talents they exercise. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The constructive intellect [genius] produces thoughts, sentences, poems, plans, designs, systems. It is the generation of the mind, the marriage of thought… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There comes a period of the imagination to each--a later youth--the power of beauty, the power of looks, of poetry. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Criticism is infested with the cant of materialism, which assumes that manual skill and activity is the first merit of all men,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The saint and poet seek privacy to ends the most public and universal: and it is the secret of culture, to interest… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Everything in creation has its appointed painter or poet and remains in bondage like the princess in the fairy tale 'til its… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The true philosopher and the true poet are one, and a beauty, which is truth, and a truth, which is beauty, is… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
All men are poets at heart. They serve nature for bread, but her loveliness overcomes them sometimes. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
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
“The foremost watchman on the peak announces his news. It is the truest word ever spoken, and the phrase will be th… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Milton says, that the lyric poet may drink wine and live generously, but the epic poet, he who shall sing of the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“So when the soul of the poet has come to ripeness of thought, she detaches and sends away from it its poems… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The great poet makes us feel our own wealth, and then we think less of his compositions. His best communication to our… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The sensual man conforms thoughts to things; the poet conforms things to his thoughts. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musican, the architect, seek each to concentrate this radiance of the world on one point,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every really able man, in whatever direction he works - a man of large affairs, an inventor, a statesman, an orator, a… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Of Nature itself upon the soul; the sunrise, the haze of autumn, the winter starlight seem interlocutors; the prevailing sense is that… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
To the birds and trees he talks: Caesar of his leafy Rome, There the poet is at home. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Test of the poet is knowledge of love, For Eros is older than Saturn or Jove; Never was poet, of late or… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The poet alone knows astronomy, chemistry, vegetation, and animation, for he does not stop at these facts, but employs them as signs.… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say 'It is in me, and shall out.' Stand there, balked and dumb, stuttering and stammering,… — 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