Ralph Waldo Emerson

The finest poetry was first experience.

The finest poetry was first experience.

We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation-rooms, for ten or fifteen years, read more

We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation-rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.

Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are read more

Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?

The studious class are their own victims; they are thin and pale,
their feet are cold, their heads are read more

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.

Commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred.

Commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred.