Quote #25
The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny.
More from Ralph Waldo Emerson
- What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered.
- All the thoughts of a turtle are turtles, and of rabbits, rabbits.
- There are two classes of poets - the poets by education and practice, these we respect; and poets by nature, these we love.
- I regard it as the irresistible effect of the Copernican astronomy to have made the theological scheme of redemption absolutely incredible
- Poetry teaches the enormous force of a few words, and, in proportion to the inspiration, checks loquacity.
- Quoted in Robert D. Richardson, Jr., Emerson, the Mind On Fire (Univ. of Calif Press 1995), p124
- A mollusk is a cheap edition [of man] with a suppression of the costlier illustrations, designed for dingy circulation, for shelving in an …
- What is there in 'Paradise Lost' to elevate and astonish like Herschel or Somerville?