Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Electricity

• Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say 'It is in me, and shall out.' Stand there, balked and dumb, stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted, stand and strive, until at last rage draw out of thee that dream-power which every night shows thee is thine own; a power transcending all limit and privacy, and by virtue of which a man is the conductor of the whole river of electricity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Dream, Night, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.199, Penguin

• Where dwells the religion? Tell me first where dwells electricity, or motion, or thought or gesture. They do not dwell or stay atall. Electricity cannot be made fast, mortared up and ended, like London Monument, or the Tower, so that you shall know where to find it, and keep it fixed, as the English do with their things, forevermore; it is passing, glancing, gesticular; it is a traveller, a newness, a surprise, a secret which perplexes them, and puts them out.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Secret, Religion, Towers

• Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power for a while.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Wisdom, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2005). “The Selected Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.143, University of Georgia Press

• The laws of light and of heat translate each other;-so do the laws of sound and colour; and so galvanism, electricity and magnetism are varied forms of this selfsame energy.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, Light, Law

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1886). “The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations...”

• The genius of reading and of gardening are antagonistic, like resinous and vitreous electricity. One is concentrative in sparks and shocks: the other is diffuse strength; so that each disqualifies its workman for the other's duties.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Reading, Gardening, Genius

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.636, Modern Library

• Man moves in all modes, by legs of horses, by wings of winds, by steam, by gas of balloon, by electricity, and stands on tiptoe threatening to hunt the eagle in his own element.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Horse, Moving, Technology

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.419, Harvard University Press

• Physical force has no value, where there is nothing else. Snow in snow-banks, fire in volcanoes and solfataras is cheap. The luxury of ice is in tropical countries, and midsummer days. The luxury of fire is, to have a little on our hearth; and of electricity, not the volleys of the charged cloud, but the manageable stream on the battery-wires. So of spirit, or energy; the rests or remains of it in the civil and moral man, are worth all the cannibals in the Pacific.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Country, Men, Fire

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2282, Delphi Classics

You May Also Like:

Henry David Thoreau

Walt Whitman

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Margaret Fuller

Emily Dickinson

Edgar Allan Poe

Herman Melville