I fancy I need more than another to speak (rather than write), with such a formidable tendency to the lapidary style. I build my house of boulders.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- The speaker prefers speaking over writing due to a tendency toward concise, stone-like style.
- In plain terms
- I speak rather than write because I build with heavy stones.
- What can you take from it?
- Some prefer speech to avoid overly polished writing.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Do you prefer speaking or writing?
- Why?
Another view
It dismisses writing as potentially less authentic without nuance.
More from Ralph Waldo Emerson
Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a …
Permalink to quote #6 Yet a man may love a paradox, without losing either his wit or his honesty.
Permalink to quote #8 He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues…
Permalink to quote #5
Related quotes
The melodic curves of speech are an expression of the complete organism and of all phases of its spiritual activities. They demonstrate whether a man is stupid…
Leos JanacekLeos Janacek quote #1 A young writer is easily tempted by the allusive and ethereal and ironic and reflective, but the declarative is at the bottom of most good writing.
Garrison KeillorGarrison Keillor quote #15 Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.
Niels BohrNiels Bohr quote #18