Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Terror

• Each is liable to panic, which is exactly, the terror of ignorance surrendered to the imagination. Knowledge is the encourager, knowledge that takes fear out of the heart, knowledge and use, which is knowledge in practice. They can conquer who believe they can. It is he who has done the deed once who does not shrink from attempting again.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Believe, Ignorance, Knowledge

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1875). “Society and Solitude: Twelve Chapters”, p.235

• A man must thank his defects, and stand in some terror of his talents.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Faults, Blame

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2267, Delphi Classics

• The two terrors that discourage creativity and creative living are fear of public opinion and undue reverence for one's own consistency.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Creativity, Two, Creative

• We fly to beauty as an asylum from the terrors of finite nature.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beauty, Nature, Asylums

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1972). “Early Lectures: 1838-1842”, p.117, Harvard University Press

• Great men, great nations, have not been boasters and buffoons, but perceivers of the terror of life, and have manned themselves to face it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Men, Faces

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.2, Harvard University Press

• The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hero, Eye, Past

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1993). “Self-reliance, and Other Essays”, p.24, Courier Corporation

• For, whom the Muses smile upon,
  And touch with soft persuasion,
  His words like a storm-wind can bring
  Terror and beauty on their wing;
  In his every syllable
  Lurketh nature veritable.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wind, Wings, Poetry

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2007). “Poems”, p.137, Cosimo, Inc.

• If I quake, what matters it what I quake at? Our proper vice takes form in one or another shape, according to the sex, age, or temperament of the person, and, if we are capable of fear, will readily find terrors.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sex, Fear, What Matters

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.210

• A man must thank his defects, and stand in some terror of his talents. A transcendent talent draws so largely on his forces as tolame him; a defect pays him revenues on the other side.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Pay, Sides

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.333

• Examples are cited by soldiers, of men who have seen the cannon pointed, and the fire given to it, and who have stepped aside from he path of the ball. The terrors of the storm are chiefly confined to the parlour and the cabin.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Fire, Soldier

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays: First and Second Series”, p.165, Library of America

• But the nomads were the terror of all those whom the soil or the advantages of the market had induced to build towns. Agriculture therefore was a religious injunction, because of the perils of the state from nomadism.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religious, Agriculture, Soil

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.149, Harvard University Press

• Fear is cruel and mean. The political reigns of terror have been reigns of madness and malignity,--a total perversion of opinion;society is upside down, and its best men are thought too bad to live.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Fear, Mean, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.130, Harvard University Press

• The terrors of the child are quite reasonable, and add to his loveliness; for his utter ignorance and weakness, and his enchanting indignation on such a small basis of capital compel every bystander to take his part.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Children, Ignorance, Bystanders

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “Society and Solitude: Twelve Chapters”, p.206, London S. Low, Son & Marston 1870.

• In the learned journal, in the influential newspaper, I discern no form; only some irresponsible shadow; oftener some monied corporation, or some dangler, who hopes, in the mask and robes of his paragraph, to pass for somebody. But through every clause and part of speech of the right book I meet the eyes of the most determined men; his force and terror inundate every word: the commas and dashes are alive; so that the writing is athletic and nimble,--can go far and live long.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Writing, Eye

• Napoleon said of Massena, that he was not himself until the battle began to go against him; then, when the dead began to fall in ranks around him, awoke his powers of combination, and he put on terror and victory as a robe.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Fall, Adversity, Victory

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.117, Harvard University Press

• Times of heroism are generally times of terror, but the day never shines in which this element may not work.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Time, Hero, Shining

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.353, Рипол Классик

• The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Discovery, Vices, Reform

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.411, Library of America

• The sea is masculine, the type of active strength. Look, what egg-shells are drifting all over it, each one, like ours, filled with men in ecstasies of terror, alternating with cockney conceit, as the sea is rough or smooth. Is this sad-colored circle an eternal cemetery?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Sea, Circles

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.172

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