Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes on Literature (27 Quotes)

Our poets are men of talents who sing, and not the children of music

Our best history is still poetry.

Language is fossil poetry.

The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musican, the architect, seek each to concentrate this radiance of the world on one point, and each in his several work to satisfy the love of beauty which stimulates him to produce.

Sooner of later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song.

It is not metres, but a metre-making argument, that makes a poem.

To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine.

The people fancy they hate poetry, and they are all poets and mystics.

Nature and literature are subjective phenomena every evil and every good thing is a shadow which we cast

The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight with a verse given in a happy quotation than in the poem.

There are two classes of poets the poets by education and practice, these we respect and poets by nature, these we love.

The constructive intellect genius produces thoughts, sentences, poems, plans, designs, systems. It is the generation of the mind, the marriage of thought with nature.

A beautiful woman is a practical poet.

Art is a jealous mistress, and if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture, or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill provider.

There was never a poet who had not the heart in the right place

Poetry must be as new as foam and as old as the rock.

Men grind and grind in the mill of a truism, and nothing comes out but what was put in. But the moment they desert the tradition for a spontaneous thought, then poetry, wit, hope, virtue, learning, anecdote, and all flock to their aid.

There is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea

It came into him life, it went out from him truth. It came to him short-lived actions it went from him poetry. It was a dead fact now, it is quick thought. It can stand, and it can go. It now endures, it now flies, it now inspires. Precisely in porportion to the depth of mind from which it issued, so high does it soar, so long does it live.

The true poem is the poet's mind.

The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for greatest, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.

Our high respect for a well-read man is praise enough of literature

Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over influence. The literature of every nation bear me witness. The English dramatic poets have Shakspearized now for two hundred years.

Conservatism makes no poetry, breathes no prayer, has no invention it is all memory. Reform has no gratitude, no prudence, no husbandry.

Only poetry inspires poetry.

It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem.

The only gift is a portion of thyself ... the poet brings his poem the shepherd his lamb....