Ralph W Emerson - Collected Quotes

"Logic is the procession or proportionate unfolding of the intuition; but its virtue is as silent method; the moment it would appear as propositions, and have a separate value, it is worthless." (Ralph W Emerson, "Essays", 1841)

"There is no teaching until the pupil is brought into the same state or principle in which you are; a transfusion takes place; he is you, and you are he; then is a teaching; and by no unfriendly chance or bad company can he ever lose the benefit." (Ralph W Emerson, "Essays", 1841)

"Therefore science always goes abreast with the just elevation of the man, keeping step with religion and metaphysics; or, the state of science is an index of our self-knowledge." (Ralph W Emerson, "The Poet", 1844)

"We live in a system of approximations. Every end is prospective of some other end, which is also temporary; a round and final success nowhere. We are encamped in nature, not domesticated." (Ralph W Emerson, "Essays", 1865)

"The last change in our point of view gives the whole world a pictorial air." (Ralph W Emerson, "Miscellanies, Embracing Nature, Addresses, and Lectures", 1866)

"We do not listen with the best regard to the verses of a man who is only a poet, nor to his problems if he is only an algebraist; but if a man is at once acquainted with the geometric foundation of things and with their festal splendor, his poetry is exact and his arithmetic music." (Ralph W Emerson, "Society and Solitude", 1870)

"It is the last lesson of modern science that the highest simplicity of structure is produced, not by few elements, but by the highest complexity." (Ralph W Emerson)

"Science always goes abreast with the just elevation of the man, keeping step with religion and metaphysics; or, the state of science is an index of our self-knowledge." (Ralph W Emerson)

"The motive of science was the extension of man, on all sides, into Nature, till his hands should touch the stars, his eyes see through the earth, his ears understand the language of beast and bird, and the sense of the wind; and, through his sympathy, heaven and earth should talk with him. But that is not our science." (Ralph W Emerson)

"The secret of education is respecting the pupil." (Ralph W Emerson)

"The simplicity of nature is not that which may easily be read, but is inexhaustible. The last analysis can no wise be made." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)