Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 112

• The wheels and springs of man are all set to the hypothesis of the permanence of nature. We are not built like a ship to be tossed, but like a house to stand.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Change, Nature, Spring

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1084, Delphi Classics

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• In my utter impotence to test the authenticity of the report of my senses, to know whether the impressions they make on me correspond with outlying objects, what difference does it make, whether Orion is up there in heaven, or some god paints the image in the firmament of the soul?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Knowledge, Differences, Heaven

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.54, Harvard University Press

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• Nature avenges herself speedily on the hard pedantry that would chain her waves. She is no literalist. Every thing must be taken genially, and we must be at the top of our condition, to understand any thing rightly.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Taken, Knowledge

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1588, Delphi Classics

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• It is a mischievous notion that we are come late into nature; that the world was finished a long time ago. As the world was plastic and fluid in the hands of God, so it is ever to so much of his attributes as we bring to it. To ignorance and sin, it is flint. They adapt to themselves to it as they may; but in proportion as a man has anything in him divine, the firmament flows before him and takes his signet and form.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Ignorance, Knowledge, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2016). “The American Scholar”, p.15, Library of Alexandria

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• There is no doctrine of the Reason which will bear to be taught by the Understanding.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Knowledge, Understanding, Doctrine

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1120, Delphi Classics

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• All things are known to the soul.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Knowledge, Soul, All Things

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• If we will not interfere with our thought, but will act entirely, or see how the thing stands in God, we know the particular thing, and every thing, and every man.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Knowledge, Men, Particular

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.60, Penguin

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• But also the constituency determines the vote of the representative. He is not only representative, but participant. Like can onlybe known by like. The reason why he knows about them is, that he is of them; he has just come out of nature, or from being a part of the thing.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Knowledge, Reason Why, Vote

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2006). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays, Lectures and Poems”, p.273, Bantam Classics

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• Man is made of the same atoms the world is, he shares the same impressions, predispositions, and destiny. When his mind is illuminated, when his heart is kind, he throws himself joyfully into the sublime order, and does, with knowledge, what the stones do by structure.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Knowledge, Heart, Destiny

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Essays and English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.305, Cosimo, Inc.

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• It is not an arbitrary "decree of God," but in the nature of man, that a veil shuts down on the facts of to-morrow; for the soul will not have us read any other cipher than that of cause and effect. By this veil, which curtains events, it instructs the children of men to live in to-day.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Children, Men, Soul

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.63, Coyote Canyon Press

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• I now require this of all pictures, that they domesticate me, not that they dazzle me. Pictures must not be too picturesque. Nothing astonishes men so much as common-sense and plain dealing. All great actions have been simple, and all great pictures are.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Men, Simple

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Ernest Spiller, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Joseph Slater, Jean Ferguson Carr (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.215, Harvard University Press

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• It never was in the power of any man or any community to call the arts into being. They come to serve his actual wants, never to please his fancy.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Creativity, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2417, Delphi Classics

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• The highest praise we can attribute to any writer, painter, sculptor, builder, is, that he actually possessed the thought or feeling with which he has inspired us.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Art, Feelings

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.23, Harvard University Press

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• Herein is the explanation of the analogies, which exist in all the arts. They are the re-appearance of one mind, working in many materials to many temporary ends. Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakspeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it. Painting was called "silent poetry," and poetry "speaking painting." The laws of each art are convertible into the laws of every other.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Writing, Law

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “Society and Solitude: Twelve Chapters”, p.48, London S. Low, Son & Marston 1870.

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• I have heard that stiff people lose something of their awkwardness under high ceilings, and in spacious halls. I think, sculptureand painting have an effect to teach us manners, and abolish hurry.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Thinking, People

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.399

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• But in every constitution some large degree of animal vigor is necessary as material foundation for the higher qualities of the art.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Animal, Quality

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.34, Harvard University Press

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• Virtue runs before the muse,
  and defies her skill;
  she is rapt and doth refuse
  to wait a painter's will.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Running, Art, Skills

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1847). “Poems”, p.192

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• Among the multitude of scholars and authors, we feel no hallowing presence; we are sensible of a knack and skill rather than of inspiration; they have a light, and know not whence it comes, and call it their own; their talent is some exaggerated faculty, some overgrown member, so that their strength is a disease.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspiration, Light, Skills

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1378, Delphi Classics

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• The motive of science was the extension of man, on all sides, into Nature, till his hands should touch the stars, his eyes see through the earth, his ears understand the language of beast and bird, and the sense of the wind; and, through his sympathy, heaven and earth should talk with him. But that is not our science.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Stars, Eye, Science

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.468

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• Science in England, in America, is jealous of theory, hates the name of love and moral purpose. There's revenge for this humanity.What manner of man does science make? The boy is not attracted. He says, I do not wish to be such a kind of man as my professor is.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Revenge, Hate

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• People seem sheathed in their tough organization.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, Organization, People

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.406, Harvard University Press

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• It is the last lesson of modern science, that the highest simplicity of structure is produced, not by few elements, but by the highest complexity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, Simplicity, Elements

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1659, Delphi Classics

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• Nor has science sufficient humanity, so long as the naturalist overlooks the wonderful congruity which subsists between man and the world; of which he is lord, not because he is the most subtile inhabitant, but because he is its head and heart, and finds something of himself in every great and small thing, in every mountain stratum, in every new law of color, fact of astronomy, or atmospheric influence which observation or analysis lay open.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Heart, Science, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.57, Penguin

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• The axioms of physics translate the laws of ethics. Thus, "the whole is greater than its part;" "reaction is equal to action;" "the smallest weight may be made to lift the greatest, the difference of weight being compensated by time;" and many the like propositions, which have an ethical as well as physical sense. These propositions have a much more extensive and universal sense when applied to human life, than when confined to technical use.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, Law, Differences

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.153

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• Empirical science is apt to cloud the sight, and, by the very knowledge of functions and processes, to bereave the student of themanly contemplation of the whole.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, Clouds, Sight

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.66, Harvard University Press

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