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 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 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 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

• 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

• Men consort in camp and town
  But the poet dwells alone.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Men, Poetry

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Poems”, p.152, The Floating Press

• 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

• For this present, hard
  Is the fortune of the bard,
  Born out of time;
  All his accomplishment,
  From Nature's utmost treasure spent,
  Booteth not him.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Accomplishment, Poetry, Treasure

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2007). “Poems”, p.44, Cosimo, Inc.

• To the birds and trees he talks:
  Caesar of his leafy Rome,
  There the poet is at home.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Home, Rome

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Emerson: Poems”, p.197, Everyman's Library

• Not always can flowers, pearls, poetry, protestations, nor even home in another heart, content the awful soul that dwells in clay.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Flower, Home, Heart

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.104, Courier Corporation

• Test of the poet is knowledge of love,
  For Eros is older than Saturn or Jove;
  Never was poet, of late or of yore,
  Who was not tremulous with love-lore.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Love, Poetry, Tests

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert J. Von Frank (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Major Poetry”, p.227, Harvard University Press

• To clothe the fiery thought
  In simple words succeeds,
  For still the craft of genius is
  To mask a king in weeds.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Weed, Kings, Simple

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1979). “Emerson's Literary Criticism”, p.85, U of Nebraska Press

• A man should have a farm or a mechanical craft for his culture. We must have a basis for our higher accomplishments, our delicate entertainments of poetry and philosophy, in the work of our hands.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Philosophy, Men, Hands

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1166, Delphi Classics

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