Quotes
Quotes - Emerson
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end. The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come, see the north-wind's masonry, Out of an unseen quarry evermore Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer Curves his white bastions with projected roof Round every windward stake, or tree, or door. Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work So fanciful, so savage, naught cares he For number or proportion.
Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel.
Great men are they who see that the spiritual is stronger than any material force.
The foundations of a person are not in matter but in spirit.
Daughter of heaven and earth, coy Spring, With sudden passion languishing, Teaching barren moors to smile, Painting pictures mile on mile, Holds a cup of cowslip wreaths Whence a smokeless incense breathes.
Cunning is strength withheld.
We acquire the strength we have overcome.
Concentration is the secret of strength.
The studious class are their own victims; they are thin and pale, their feet are cold, their heads are hot, the night is without sleep, the day a fear of interruption,--pallor, squalor, hunger, and egotism. If you come near them and see what conceits they entertain--they are abstractionists, and spend their days and nights in dreaming some dream; in expecting the homage of society to some precious scheme built on a truth, but destitute of proportion in its presentment, of justness in its application, and of all energy of will in the schemer to embody and vitalize it.
One thing is forever good; That one thing is Success.
Born for success, he seemed With grace to win, with heart to hold, With shining gifts that took all eyes.
If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.
If a man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles, or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, tho it be in the woods. And if a man knows the law, people will find it out, tho he live in a pine shanty, and resort to him. And if a man can pipe or sing, so as to wrap the prisoned soul in an elysium; or can paint landscape, and convey into oils and ochers all the enchantments of spring or autumn; or can liberate or intoxicate all people who hear him with delicious songs and verses, 'tis certain that the secret can not be kept: the first witness tells it to a second, and men go by fives and tens and fifties to his door.
If man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles, or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, tho it be in the woods.
Success: To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded!
We boast our emancipation from many superstitions; but if we have broken any idols, it is through a transfer of idolatry.
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
Every sweet hath its sour, every evil its good.
The secrets of life are not shown except to sympathy and likeness.
Harmony of aim, not identity of conclusion, is the secret of sympathetic life.
Each man has his own vocation; his talent is his call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him.
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied.
There is no teaching until the pupil is brought into the same state or principle in which you are; a transfusion takes place; he is you, and you are he; there is a teaching; and by no unfriendly chance or bad company can he ever quite lose the benefit.
Knowledge exists to be imparted.
