Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Work

The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men: seven lectures

This collection includes Emerson's influential lectures that explore the lives and ideas of various historical figures, reflecting his philosophical and literary contributions to American transcendentalism. more

Author

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson

American essayist, poet, and philosopher. Born on May 25, 1803, and died on April 27, 1882. Known for his transcendentalist philosophy, his works have had a profound impact on literature and the intellectual world. more

You May Also Like

“Every individual nature has its own beauty. One is struck in every company, at every fireside, with the riches of nature, when he hears so many new tones, all musical, sees in each person original manners, which have a proper and peculiar charm, and reads new expressions of face. He perceives that nature has laid for each the foundations of a divine building, if the soul will build thereon.”

IfsPersonsSoulFacesIndividualCompanyBuildingDivineExpressionOriginalsFoundationMusicalIndividualityRichesMannersPerceiveToneCharmPeculiar
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)
Create image

“You must elect your work; you shall take what your brains can, and drop all the rest. Only so can that amount of vital force accumulate which can make the step from knowing to doing. No matter how much faculty of idle seeing a man has, the step from knowing to doing is rarely taken. It is a step out of a chalk circle of imbecility into fruitfulness.”

MenMatterForceBrainStepsKnowingTakenSeeingAmountMethodCirclesFacultyIdleChalkFruitfulnessImbecility
Book:The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations
Create image

“I see the spectacle of morning from the hilltop over against my house, from daybreak to sunrise, with emotions which an angel might share. The long slender bars of cloud float like fishes in the sea of crimson light. From the earth, as a shore, I look out into that silent sea. I seem to partake its rapid transformations; the active enchantment reaches my dust, and I dilate and conspire with the morning wind.”

LooksLongLightSeemsMightEarthHouseEmotionMorningSeaShareWindAngelTransformationSilentCloudsFishesActiveBarsDustShoreSunriseFloatsRapidsEnchantmentSlenderCrimsonDaybreak
Book:The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature addresses and lectures
Create image

“One more royal trait properly belongs to the poet. I mean his cheerfulness, without which no man can be a poet,--for beauty is his aim. He loves virtue, not for its obligation, but for its grace; he delights in the world, in man, in woman, for the lovely light that sparkles from them. Beauty, the spirit of joy and hilarity, he sheds over the universe.”

MenWorldMeanLightJoySpiritUniverseVirtueGracePoetAimDelightLovelyObligationTraitsShedRoyalCheerfulnessSparkleHilarity
Book:Representative Men: Seven Lectures
Create image