It has come to be practically a sort of rule in literature that a man, having once shown himself capable of original writing, is entitled thenceforth to steal from the writings of others at discretion. Ralph Waldo Emerson More Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson More Quotes From Ralph Waldo Emerson If a man lose his balance, and immerse himself in any trades or pleasures for their own sake, he may be a good wheel or pin, but he is not a cultivated man. Ralph Waldo Emerson balance work men The common experience is, that the man fits himself as well as he can to the customary details of that work or trade he falls into, and tends it as a dog turns a spit. Then he is part of the machine he moves; the man is lost. Ralph Waldo Emerson dog work moving Foolish, whenever you take the meanness and formality of that thing you do, instead of converting it into the obedient spiracle ofyour character and aims. Ralph Waldo Emerson foolish work character Each man has an aptitude born with him. Do your work. Ralph Waldo Emerson aptitude work men Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is all. Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and soldier. Ralph Waldo Emerson soldier work men There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade, for learned as well as for unlearned hands. And labor is everywhere welcome; alwayswe are invited to work. Ralph Waldo Emerson hoe work hands The people know that they need in their representative much more than talent, namely, the power to make his talent trusted. Ralph Waldo Emerson power people needs Fear is cruel and mean. The political reigns of terror have been reigns of madness and malignity,--a total perversion of opinion;society is upside down, and its best men are thought too bad to live. Ralph Waldo Emerson fear men mean A good deal of our politics is physiological. Ralph Waldo Emerson physiological deals politics Although knaves win in every political struggle, although society seems to be delivered over from the hands of one set of criminals into the hands of another set of criminals, as fast as the government is changed, and the march of civilization is a train of felonies, yet, general ends are somehow answered. Ralph Waldo Emerson government struggle winning Senators and presidents have climbed so high with pain enough, not because they think the place specially agreeable, but as an apology for real worth, and to vindicate their manhood in our eyes. This conspicuous chair is their compensation to themselves for being of a poor, cold, hard nature. Ralph Waldo Emerson pain real ambition A party is perpetually corrupted by personality. Ralph Waldo Emerson politics party personality Meantime the education of the general mind never stops. The reveries of the true and simple are prophetic. What the tender poeticyouth dreams, and prays, and paints today, but shuns the ridicule of saying aloud, shall presently be the resolutions of public bodies, then shall be carried as grievance and bill of rights through conflict and war, and then shall be triumphant law and establishment for a hundred years, until it gives place, in turn, to new prayers and pictures. Ralph Waldo Emerson prayer dream war Surely nobody would be a charlatan, who could afford to be sincere. Ralph Waldo Emerson sincere politics would-be We might as easily reprove the east wind, or the frost, as a political party, whose members, for the most part, could give no account of their position, but stand for the defence of those interests in which they find themselves. Ralph Waldo Emerson party wind giving Jesus and Shakespeare are fragments of the soul, and by love I conquer and incorporate them in my own conscious domain. His virtue,--is not that mine? His wit,--if it cannot be made mine, it is not wit. Ralph Waldo Emerson conquer soul jesus Romeo, of dead, should be cut up into little stars to make the heavens fine. Life, with this pair, has no other aim, asks no more,than Juliet,--than Romeo. Ralph Waldo Emerson romance cutting stars Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare. Ralph Waldo Emerson influence study made Shakspeare is the only biographer of Shakspeare; and even he can tell nothing, except to the Shakspeare in us; that is, to our most apprehensive and sympathetic hour. Ralph Waldo Emerson biographers sympathetic hours Could Shakespeare give a theory of Shakespeare? Ralph Waldo Emerson theory giving
