"Only that is poetry which cleanses and mans me."
Read quote
3 likes
Quote collection
Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (page 179 of 211)
4.2K quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Poets should be law-givers; that is, the boldest lyric inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead the civil code, and the day's work."
Read quote
3 likes
"The poet's habit of living should be set on a key so low that the common influences should delight him."
Read quote
3 likes
"God knows that all sorts of gentlemen knock at the door; but whenever used in strictness and with any emphasis, the name will be found to point at original energy."
Read quote
3 likes
"There are faces so fluid with expression, so flushed and rippled by the play of thought, that we can hardly find what the mere features really are. When the delicious beauty of lineament loses its power, it is because a more delicious beauty has appeared, that an interior and durable form has been disclosed."
Read quote
3 likes
"I do not know what arguments mean in reference to any expression of a thought. I delight in telling what I think; but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of men."
Read quote
3 likes
"The religion of England is part of good-breeding. When you see on the continent the well-dressed Englishman come into his ambassador's chapel and put his face for silent prayer into his smooth-brushed hat, you cannot help feeling how much national pride prays with him, and the religion of a gentleman."
Read quote
3 likes
"In old Egypt, it was established law, that the vote of a prophet be reckoned equal to a hundred hands. I think it was much under-estimated."
Read quote
3 likes
"A state of war or anarchy, in which law has little force, is so far valuable, that it puts every man on trial. The man of principle is known as such, and even in the fury of faction is respected."
Read quote
3 likes
"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."
Read quote
3 likes
"To the birds and trees he talks: Caesar of his leafy Rome, There the poet is at home."
Read quote
3 likes
"Milton says, that the lyric poet may drink wine and live generously, but the epic poet, he who shall sing of the gods, and their descent unto men, must drink water out of a wooden bowl. For poetry is not "Devil's wine," but God's wine."
Read quote
3 likes
"Criticism is infested with the cant of materialism, which assumes that manual skill and activity is the first merit of all men, and disparages such as say and do not, overlooking the fact, that some men, namely, poets, are natural sayers, sent into the world to the end of expression, and confounds them with those whose province is action, but who quit to imitate the sayers."
Read quote
3 likes
"There is, in all great poets, a wisdom of humanity which is superior to any talents they exercise."
Read quote
3 likes
"The world still wants its poet-priest, a reconciler, who shall not trifle with Shakspeare the player, nor shall grope in graves with Swedenborg the mourner; but who shall see, speak, and act, with equal inspiration. For knowledge will brighten the sunshine; right is more beautiful than private affection; and love is compatible with universal wisdom."
Read quote
3 likes
"It is the essence of poetry to spring, like the rainbow daughter of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish the past, and refuse all history."
Read quote
3 likes
"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."
Read quote
3 likes
"The poet needs a ground in popular tradition on which he may work, and which, again, may restrain his art within the due temperance. It holds him to the people, supplies a foundation for his edifice; and, in furnishing so much work done to his hand, leaves him at leisure, and in full strength for the audacities of his imagination."
Read quote
3 likes
"Men consort in camp and town But the poet dwells alone."
Read quote
3 likes
"To clothe the fiery thought In simple words succeeds, For still the craft of genius is To mask a king in weeds."
Read quote
3 likes