Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Poetry

• A lady with whom I was riding in the forest said to me that the woods always seemed to her to wait, as if the genii who inhabit them suspend their deeds until the wayfarer had passed onward; a thought which poetry has celebrated in the dance of the fairies, which breaks off on the approach of human feet.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Feet, Break Off, Waiting

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.147, Harvard University Press

• Only poetry inspires poetry.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Poetry, Inspire

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1871). “Society and Solitude and Other Essays”, p.171

• Painting was called silent poetry and poetry speaking painting.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Pain, Poetry, Silence

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2415, Delphi Classics

• Everything in creation has its appointed painter or poet and remains in bondage like the princess in the fairy tale 'til its appropriate liberator comes to set it free.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Princess, Poetry

• Every word was once a poem.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Poetry

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Emerson: Poems”, p.251, Everyman's Library

• It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Philosophy, Long

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.209, Harvard University Press

• Poetry must be as new as foam and as old as the rock.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Philosophy, Rocks

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph H. Orth, Glen M. Johnson (1994). “The Topical Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.184, University of Missouri Press

• Good poetry could not have been otherwise written than it is. The first time you hear it, it sounds rather as if copied out of some invisible tablet in the Eternal mind than as if arbitrarily composed by the poet.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Poetry, Mind, Sound

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1964). “The Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.49, Harvard University Press

• Men grind and grind in the mill of a truism, and nothing comes out but what was put in. But the moment they desert the tradition for a spontaneous thought, then poetry, wit, hope, virtue, learning, anecdote, and all flock to their aid.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hope, Learning, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1136, Delphi Classics

• Language is fossil Poetry.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Poetry, Fossils, Language

  'Essays. Second Series' (1844) 'The Poet'

• For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and anon a word, a verse, and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Writing, Air, Poetry

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.187, Penguin

• The true poem is the poet's mind.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Poetry, Mind

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

• The finest poetry was first experience.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Poetry, Firsts, Finest

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1628, Delphi Classics

• For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument that makes a poem.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Poetry, Argument

  1844 Essays: Second Series,'The Poet'.

• The only gift is a portion of thyself . . . the poet brings his poem; the shepherd his lamb. . . .

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Poetry, Shepherds, Lambs

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

• The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for greatness, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Ambition, Character

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2800, Delphi Classics

• And of poetry, the success is not attained when it lulls and satisfies, but when it astonishes and fires us with new endeavours after the unattainable.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Fire, Poetry, Unattainable

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.83

• Therefore we value the poet. All the argument and all the wisdom is not in the encyclopedia, or the treatise on metaphysics, or the Body of Divinity, but in the sonnet or the play.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Play, Poetry, Body

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.193, Harvard University Press

• The charming landscape which I saw this morning is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all parts, that is, the poet. This is the best part of these men's farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds give no title.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Morning, Eye, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.36, Harvard University Press

• Milton says, that the lyric poet may drink wine and live generously, but the epic poet, he who shall sing of the gods, and their descent unto men, must drink water out of a wooden bowl. For poetry is not "Devil's wine," but God's wine.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Wine, Epic

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1425, Delphi Classics

• The rhyme of the poet
  Modulates the king's affairs.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Kings, Poetry, Politics

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Poems”, p.144, The Floating Press

• 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 may climb into the thin and cold realm of pure geometry and lifeless science, or sink into that of sensation. Between these extremes is the equator of life, of thought, or spirit, or poetry,--a narrow belt.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, Poetry, May

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.480, Library of America

• Nor sequent centuries could hit
  Orbit and sum of SHAKSPEARE's wit.
  The men who lived with him became
  Poets, for the air was fame.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Air, Poetry

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Poems”, p.240, The Floating Press

• The world still wants its poet-priest, a reconciler, who shall not trifle with Shakspeare the player, nor shall grope in graves with Swedenborg the mourner; but who shall see, speak, and act, with equal inspiration. For knowledge will brighten the sunshine; right is more beautiful than private affection; and love is compatible with universal wisdom.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beautiful, Inspiration, Sunshine

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1850). “Representative Men: Seven Lectures”, p.162

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