Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Greek

• There are men whose manners have the same essential splendor as the simple and awful sculpture on the friezes of the Parthenon, and the remains of the earliest Greek art.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Simple, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Self-Reliance and Other Essays”, p.6, Courier Corporation

• Greek architecture is the flowering of geometry.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Greek, Architecture, Geometry

• What is the foundation of that interest all men feel in Greek history, letters, art, and poetry, in all its periods, from the Heroic or Homeric age down to the domestic life of the Athenians and Spartans, four or five centuries later? What but this, that every man passes personally through a Grecian period.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Men, Greek

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.150, Harvard University Press

• We, as we read, must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner; must fasten these images to some reality in our secret experience, or we shall learn nothing rightly.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Kings, Reality, Greek

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.16, Graphic Arts Books

• The Greek epigram intimates that the force of love is not shown by the courting of beauty, but where the like desire is inflamed for one who is ill-favored.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Love Is, Greek, Desire

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.115, Courier Corporation

• A beautiful person among the Greeks, was thought to betray by this sign some secret favor of the immortal gods; and we can pardonpride, when a woman possesses such a figure that wherever she stands, or moves, or leaves a shadow on the wall, or sits for a portrait to the artist, she confers a favor on the world.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beauty, Beautiful, Wall

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.202, Graphic Arts Books

• In the Greek cities, it was reckoned profane, that any person should pretend a property in a work of art, which belonged to all who could behold it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Cities, Greek

  The Conduct of Life "Wealth" (1860)

• The Good Spirit never cared for the colleges, and though all men and boys were now drilled in Greek, Latin, and Mathematics, it had quite left these shells high on the beach, and was creating and feeding other matters [science] at other ends of the world.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beach, Latin, Science

• Under the dominion of an idea, which possesses the minds of multitudes, as civil freedom, or the religious sentiment, the power ofpersons are no longer subjects of calculation. A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom, or conquest, can easily confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions, out of all proportion to their means; as, the Greeks, the Saracens, the Swiss, the Americans, and the French have done.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religious, Mean, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.253, Harvard University Press

• In my dealing with my child, my Latin and Greek, my accomplishments and my money stead me nothing; but as much soul as I have avails. If I am wilful, he sets his will against mine, one for one, and leaves me, if I please, the degradation of beating him by my superiority of strength. But if I renounce my will, and act for the soul, setting that up as umpire between us two, out of his young eyes looks the same soul; he reveres and loves with me.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Children, Latin, Eye

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.168, Penguin

• Repose and cheerfulness are the badge of the gentleman - repose in energy. The Greek battle pieces are calm; the heroes, in whatever violent actions engaged, retain a serene aspect.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hero, Greek, Gentleman

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.376

• In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with his legs. RALPH WALDO EMERSON, Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks Greek architecture is the perfect flowering of geometry.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Notebook, Morning, Men

  "Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks: 1847-1848". Book by Ralph Waldo Emerson (p. 384), 1973.

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