It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The poet's habit of living should be set on a key so low that the common influences should delight him. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I am grown by sympathy a little eager and sentimental, but leave me alone, and I should relish every hour and what… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Why should I hasten to solve every riddle which life offers me? I am well assured that the Questioner, who brings me… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
As the gardener, by severe pruning, forces the sap of the tree into one or two vigorous limbs, so should you stop… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Romeo, of dead, should be cut up into little stars to make the heavens fine. Life, with this pair, has no other… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The cheapness of man is every day's tragedy. It is as real a loss that others should be low, as that we… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Nature wishes that woman should attract man, yet she often cunningly moulds into her face a little sarcasm, which seems to say,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The Buddhist, who thanks no man, who says "Do not flatter your benefactors," but who, in his conviction that every good deed… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Art should exhilarate, and throw down the walls of circumstance on every side, awakening in the beholder the same sense of universal… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The lessons of science should be experimental also. The sight of a planet through a telescope is worth all the course on… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If the colleges were better, if they ... had the power of imparting valuable thought, creative principles, truths which become powers, thoughts… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The pulpit and the press have many commonplaces denouncing the thirst for wealth, but if men should take these moralists at their… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Freedom is the essence of this faith. It has for its object simply to make men good and wise. Its institutions then… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A man should not go where he cannot carry his whole sphere or society with him,Mnot bodily, the whole circle of his… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
For, when men shall meet as they ought, each a benefactor, a shower of stars, clothed with thoughts, with deeds, with accomplishments,… — 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
In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Steam was till the other day the devil which we dreaded. Every pot made by any human potter or brazier had a… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
History is full, down to this day, of the imbecility of kings and governors. They are a class of persons much to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A man should have a farm or a mechanical craft for his culture. We must have a basis for our higher accomplishments,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If I should go out of church whenever I hear a false statement I could never stay there five minutes. But why… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
When I go into the garden with a spade and dig a bed I feel such an exhilaration and health that I… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Why should we assume the faults of our friend, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around our hearth, or… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
he who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling with the souls of other men, from living, breathing,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Don't trust children with edge tools. Don't trust man, great God, with more power than he has until he has learned to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We fill the hands and nurseries of our children with all manner of dolls, drums and horses, withdrawing their eyes from the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Why should you renounce your right to traverse the star-lit deserts of truth, of the premature comforts of an acre, house, and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A seashell should be the crest of England, not only because it represents a power built on the waves, but also the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
In the Greek cities, it was reckoned profane, that any person should pretend a property in a work of art, which belonged… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
In our fine arts, not imitation, but creation is the aim... The details, the prose of nature, he should omit, and give… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every man should let out all the length of all the reigns; should find or make a frank and healthy expression of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I find it more credible, since it is anterior information, that one man should know heaven, as the Chinese say, than that… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If I made laws for Shakers or a school, I should gazette every Saturday all the words they were wont to use… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Poets should be law-givers; that is, the boldest lyric inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead the civil… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I wish that friendship should have feet, as well as eyes and eloquence. It must plant itself on the ground, before it… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Therefore all just persons are satisfied with their own praise. They refuse to explain themselves, and are content that new actions should… — 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
