Quote #21
A mollusk is a cheap edition [of man] with a suppression of the costlier illustrations, designed for dingy circulation, for shelving in an oyster-bank or among the seaweed.
More from Ralph Waldo Emerson
- The key to the period appeared to be that the mind had become aware of itself ... The young men were born with knives in their brain, a ten…
- Poetry teaches the enormous force of a few words, and, in proportion to the inspiration, checks loquacity.
- Only the great generalizations survive. The sharp words of the Declaration of Independence, lampooned then and since as 'glittering general…
- There are two classes of poets - the poets by education and practice, these we respect; and poets by nature, these we love.
- If the colleges were better, if they ... had the power of imparting valuable thought, creative principles, truths which become powers, thou…
- What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered.
- Never read any book that is not a year old.
- The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny.