Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Creativity

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  The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Positive, Hope

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Carlyle (1841). “Essays”, p.4

• He who would be a man must therefore be a non-conformist.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Creativity, Men, Innovation

• There is creative reading as well as creative writing.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Reading, Writing

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alfred R. Ferguson (1965). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume V: 1835-1838”, p.233, Harvard University Press

• A creative economy is the fuel of magnificence.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Money, Creativity, Creative

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1857). “English Traits”, p.178

• A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree; or draw a child by studying the outlines of its form merely but by watching for a time his motions and plays, the painter enters into his nature and can then draw him at every attitude.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Children, Attitude

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.244, Library of America

• Speak as you think, be what you are, pay your debts of all kinds. I prefer to be owned as sound and solvent, and my word as good as my bond, and to be what cannot be skipped, or dissipated, or undermined, to all the eclat in the universe. This reality is the foundation of friendship, religion, poetry, and art.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Creativity, Reality

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.1122, Library of America

• The two terrors that discourage creativity and creative living are fear of public opinion and undue reverence for one's own consistency.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Creativity, Two, Creative

• Every really able man, in whatever direction he works - a man of large affairs, an inventor, a statesman, an orator, a poet, a painter - if you talk sincerely with him, considers his work, however much admired, as far short of what it should be. What is this Better, this flying Ideal, but the perpetual promise of his Creator?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspiration, Creativity, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.339, Рипол Классик

• Prosperity is something the businessmen created for politicians to take credit for

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Creativity, Credit, Prosperity

• There is some reason to believe that when a man does not write his poetry it escapes by other vents through him, instead of the one vent of writing; clings to his form and manners, whilst poets have often nothing poetical about them except their verses.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Believe, Writing, Creativity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.389

• The poet needs a ground in popular tradition on which he may work, and which, again, may restrain his art within the due temperance. It holds him to the people, supplies a foundation for his edifice; and, in furnishing so much work done to his hand, leaves him at leisure, and in full strength for the audacities of his imagination.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Creativity, Hands

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1619, Delphi Classics

• We must learn the language of facts. The most wonderful inspirations die with their subject, if he has no hand to paint them to the senses.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Creativity, Hands

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1397, Delphi Classics

• A poet is no rattlebrain, saying what comes uppermost, and, because he says every thing, saying, at last, something good; but a heart in unison with his time and country. There is nothing whimsical or fantastic in his production, but sweet and sad earnest, freighted with the weightiest convictions, and pointed with the most determined aim which any man or class knows of in his times.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Country, Sweet, Heart

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.110, 谷月社

• It is easy to see that what is best written or done by genius in the world, was no man's work but came by wide social labor, whena thousand wrought like one, sharing the same impulse.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Creativity, Men, Genius

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1621, Delphi Classics

• Each truth that a writer acquires is a lantern, which he turns full on what facts and thoughts lay already in his mind, and behold, all the mats and rubbish which had littered his garret become precious. Every trivial fact in his private biography becomes an illustration of this new principle, revisits the day, and delights all men by its piquancy and new charm.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Creativity, Men, Illustration

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1396, Delphi Classics

• Great genial power, one would almost say, consists in not being original at all; in being altogether receptive; in letting the world do all, and suffering the spirit of the hour to pass unobstructed through the mind.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Creativity, Mind, Suffering

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1979). “Emerson's Literary Criticism”, p.164, U of Nebraska Press

• It never was in the power of any man or any community to call the arts into being. They come to serve his actual wants, never to please his fancy.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Creativity, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2417, Delphi Classics

• Creative force, like a musical composer, goes on unweariedly repeating a simple air or theme, now high, now low, in solo, in chorus, ten thousand times reverberated, till it fills earth and heaven with the chant.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Creativity, Simple

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.59

• That which builds is better than that which is built.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Creativity, Built

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2011). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.343, Penguin

• Because the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself, but in every act attempts the production of a new and fairer whole.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Creativity, Soul, Never Quit

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1404, Delphi Classics

• A song is no song unless the circumstance is free and fine. If a singer sing from a sense of duty or from seeing no way to escape,I had rather have none. Those only can sleep who do not care to sleep; and those only write or speak best who do not too much respect the writing or the speaking.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Song, Sleep, Writing

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.92, Harvard University Press

• A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Creativity, Tree, Becoming

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.244, Library of America

• But it is impossible that the creative power should exclude itself. Into every intelligence there is a door which is never closed,through which the creator passes.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Creativity, Doors, Creative

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Self-Reliance and Other Essays”, p.87, Courier Corporation

• In our fine arts, not imitation, but creation is the aim... The details, the prose of nature, he should omit, and give us only the spirit and splendour.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Creativity, Giving

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.157

• The world is young: the former great men call to us affectionately. We too must write Bibles, to unite again the heavens and the earthly world.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Writing, Creativity, Greatness

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2004). “A Dream Too Wild: Emerson Meditations for Every Day of the Year”, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

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