Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Libraries

• A man's library is a sort of harem.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Library, Enthusiasm

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.415, Harvard University Press

• But there is no end to the praise of books, to the value of the library. Who shall estimate their influence on our population where all the millions read and write ? It is the joy of nations that man can communicate all his thoughts, discoveries and virtues to records that may last for centuries.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Writing, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1921). “Representative men. Miscellanies”

• In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends, but they are imprisoned by an enchanter in these paper and leathern boxes.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Reading, Library, Paper

  "Society and Solitude and Other Essays".

• It happens to us once or twice in a lifetime to be drunk with some book which probably has some extraordinary relative power to intoxicate us and none other; and having exhausted that cup of enchantment we go groping in libraries all our years afterwards in the hope of being in Paradise again.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Years, Drunk

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1911). “Lectures and biographical sketches”

• Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Growing Up, Believe, Book

  The American Scholar sec. 2 (1837)

• The colleges, while they provide us with libraries, furnish no professors of books; and I think no chair is so much needed.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, College, Thinking

• Consider what you have in the smallest well-chosen library-a company of the wisest and wittiest men which can be plucked out of all civilized countries in a thousand years. The men themselves were then hidden and inaccessible. They were solitary, impatient of interruption, and fenced by etiquette. But now they are immortal, and the thought they did not reveal, even to their bosom friends, is here written out in transparent words of light to us, who are strangers of another age.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Friendship, Country, Men

• Meek young men grow up in libraries.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Growing Up, Men, Library

  The American Scholar sec. 2 (1837)

• Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civil countries, in a thousand years, have set in best order the results of their learning and wisdom.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Country, Book, Reading

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2472, Delphi Classics

• He needs no library, for he has not done thinking; no church, for he is himself a prophet; no statute book, for he hath the Lawgiver; no money, for he is value itself; no road, for he is at home where he is.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Home, Thinking

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1969). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VII: 1838-1842”, p.332, Harvard University Press

• Solitary converse with nature; for thence are ejaculated sweet and dreadful words never uttered in libraries. Ah! the spring days, the summer dawns, and October woods!

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Summer, Sweet, Nature

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2657, Delphi Classics

• Only those books come down which deserve to last . All the gilt edges, vellum and morocco, all the presentation copies to all the libraries will not preserve a book in circulation beyond its intrinsic date.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Library, Morocco

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1964). “The Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.65, Harvard University Press

• Be a little careful about your library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be sure. But the real question is what it will do with you? You will come here and get books that will open your eyes, and your ears, and your curiosity, and turn you inside out or outside in.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Real, Book, Eye

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edward Waldo Emerson, Waldo Emerson Forbes (1914). “Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1820-1872 [1876] Ed”

• To be rich is to have a ticket of admission to the masterworks and chief men of each race. It is to have the sea, by voyaging; to visit the mountains, Niagara, the Nile, the desert, Rome, Paris, Constantinople: to see galleries, libraries, arsenals, manufactories.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Race, Rome

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.366

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