"The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly.
Every word was once a poem.
More Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes
"The secret of poetry is never explained - is always new. We have not got farther than mere wonder at the delicacy of the touch, & the eternity it inhe...
"Everything in creation has its appointed painter or poet and remains in bondage like the princess in the fairy tale 'til its appropriate liberator com...
"Language is fossil Poetry.
"Imagination is a very high sort of seeing, which does not come by study, but by the intellect being where and what it sees, by sharing the path, or ci...
"The poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty. He is a sovereign, and stands on the centre. For the world is not painted, or adorned, but is...
"Some people will tell you there is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea.
"It is not metres, but a metre-making argument that makes a poem,—a thought so passionate and alive that like the spirit of a plant or an animal it has...
"Why covet a knowledge of new facts? Day and night, house and garden, a few books, a few actions, serve us as well as would all trades and all spectacl...
"Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say 'It is in me, and shall out.' Stand there, balked and dumb, stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted, stand an...
"For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we ...
"Nature enhances her beauty, to the eye of loving men, from their belief that the poet is beholding her shows at the same time. He is isolated among hi...
"It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem.
"Love what is simple and beautiful. These are the essentials.
"The poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty.