Philosophy Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson — Inspiring Words on Life, Love & Wisdom

“A world in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

“Imagination is not a talent of some men but is the health of every man.”

“America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.”

“God offers to every mind a choice between repose and truth. take which you please--you can never have both. [Essay on Intellect]”

“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.”

“The poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty. He is a sovereign, and stands on the centre. For the world is not painted, or adorned, but is from the beginning beautiful; and God has not made some beautiful things, but Beauty is the creator of the universe. Therefore the poet is not any permissive potentate, but is emperor in his own right. Criticism is infested with a 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 it to imitate the sayers. The poet does not wait for the hero or the sage, but, as they act and think primarily, so he writes primarily what will and must be spoken, reckoning the others, though primaries also, yet, in respect to him, secondaries and servants; as sitters or models in the studio of a painter, or as assistants who bring building materials to an architect.”

“In so far as the culture industry arouses a feeling of well-being that the world is precisely in that order suggested by the culture industry, the substitute gratification which it prepares for human beings cheats them out of the same happiness which it deceitfully projects.”

“You’re still a little shy, I see, the wizard noted. I think if you ignore evil, my friend, it tends to grow stronger. (Quinhelm, the wizard - from BRIGGEN)”

“William James describes a man who got the experience from laughing-gas; whenever he was under its influence, he knew the secret of the universe, but when he came to, he had forgotten it. At last, with immense effort, he wrote down the secret before the vision had faded. When completely recovered, he rushed to see what he had written. It was: "A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.”

“The best things in life are crazy.”

“Three metamorphoses of the spirit have I designated to you: how the”

“We are a society of notoriously unhappy people: lonely, anxious, depressed, destructive, dependent — people who are glad when we have killed the time we are trying so hard to save.”