(1803–1882)
U.S. essayist, poet, and philosopher“Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests and mines and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.”
more infosource: “Plato; or, the Philosopher”
category: influence, originality, quotation
medium: Essay
via: Austin Kleon“We find a delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.”
more infosource: “Illusions,” in The Conduct of Life (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1904), 316.
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category: beauty, child, endearment
medium: nonfiction
notes: Emerson's essay collection A Conduct of Life was first published in 1860
“I have confidence in the laws of morals as of botany. I have planted maize in my field every June for seventeen years and I never knew it come up strychnine. My parsley, beet, turnip, carrot, buck-thorn, chestnut, acorn, are as sure. I believe that justice produces justice, and injustice injustice.”
more infosource: 1852 journal entry, in Emerson in Concord (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1889), 79.
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category: botany, farming, injustice, justice, moral
medium: Journal
“Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. Many will read the book before one thinks of quoting a passage. As soon as he has done this, that line will be quoted east and west.”
more infosource: “Quotation and Originality,” in Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Vol. 4 (Boston: Houghton, Osgood & Company, 1880), 154.
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category: originality, quotation
medium: Essay
“I cannot get enough alone to write a letter to a friend. I retreat & hide. I left the city, I hid myself in the pastures. When I bought a house, the first thing I did was to plant trees. I could not conceal myself enough. Set a hedge here, set pines there, trees & trees, set evergreens, above all, for they will keep my secret all year round.”
more infosource: July 1849 entry, Emerson in His Journals, selected and edited by Joel Porte (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 401–402.
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category: introvert, privacy, solitude, tree
medium: Journal
“Do not be too timid & squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better. What if they are a little coarse, & you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, & get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again, you shall never more be so afraid of a tumble.”
more infosource: Nov. 1842 entry, Emerson in His Journals, selected and edited by Joel Porte (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 294–95.
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category: advice, experiment, failure, school of life
medium: Journal
“Never was a more brilliant show of colored landscape than yesterday afternoon—incredibly excellent topaz & ruby at 4 o’clock, cold & shabby at 6.”
more infosource: Oct. 11, 1854 entry, Emerson in His Journals, selected and edited by Joel Porte (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 457.
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category: beautiful description, color, landscape, nature
medium: Journal
“What a discovery I made one day that the more I spent the more I grew, that it was as easy to occupy a large place & do much work as an obscure place & do little…”
more infosource: April–May 1846 entry, Emerson in His Journals, selected and edited by Joel Porte (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 351.
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category: creativity, discovery, growth, school of life
medium: Journal
“This morn the air smells of vanilla & oranges.”
more infosource: May 8, 1844 entry, Emerson in His Journals, selected and edited by Joel Porte (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 324.
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category: air, morning, orange, scent, vanilla
medium: Journal
“It is a great joy to get away from persons, & live under the dominion of the Multiplication Table.”
more infosource: Emerson in His Journals, selected and edited by Joel Porte (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 303.
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medium: Journal
“I love the Sunday Morning. I hail it from afar. I wake with gladness & a holiday feeling always on that day.”
more infosource: Sept 28, 1839 entry, Emerson in His Journals, selected and edited by Joel Porte (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 225.
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category: Sunday
medium: Journal
“I have seen the poor boy when he came to a tuft of violets in the wood, kneel down on the ground, smell of them, kiss them, & depart without plucking them.”
more infosource: Jan.? 1842 entry, Emerson in His Journals, selected and edited by Joel Porte (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 277.
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category: appreciation, flower, nature, observation, poor
medium: Journal
“For marriage find somebody that was born near the time when you were born.”
more infosource: Jan.? 1842 entry, Emerson in His Journals, selected and edited by Joel Porte (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 277.
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category: advice, marriage, school of life
medium: Journal
“Life is selection, no more. The work of the gardener is simply to destroy this weed, or that shrub, or that tree, & leave this other to grow. The library is gradually made inestimable by taking out from the superabounding mass of books all but the best. The palace is a selection of materials; it’s architecture, a selection of the best effects. Things collect very fast of themselves; the difference between house & house is the wise omissions.”
more infosource: May–June 1846, Emerson in His Journals, selected and edited by Joel Porte (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 357.
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category: edit, omission, school of life, selection, subtraction
medium: Journal
“When I bought my farm, I did not know what a bargain I had in the bluebirds, bobolinks, & thrushes. As little did I know what sublime mornings & sunsets I was buying.”
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Ralph Waldo Emerson