Quote #279
Genius borrows nobly. When Shakespeare is charged with debts to his authors, Landor replies: 'Yet he was more original than his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them into life.'
More from Ralph Waldo Emerson
- A great man quotes bravely, and will not draw on his invention when his memory serves him with a word just as good.
- By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.
- The profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader. The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine until an equal mi…
- Now shall we say that only the first men were well alive, and the existing generation is invalided and degenerate? ... A more subtle and se…
- Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.
- We cannot overstate our debt to the Past, but the moment has the supreme claim. The Past is for us; but the sole terms on which it can beco…
- The heroic cannot be the common, nor can the common be the heroic.
- There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.