"Now shall we say that only the first men were well alive, and the existing generation is invalided and degenerate? ... A more subtle and severe criticism might suggest that some dislocation has befallen the race; that men are off their centre; that multitudes of men do not live with Nature, but behold it as exiles. People go out to look at sunrises and sunsets who do not recognize their own quietly and happily, but know that it is foreign to them. As they do by books, so they quote the sunset and the star, and do not make them theirs. Worse yet, they live as foreigners in the world of truth, and quote thoughts, and thus disown them. Quotation confesses inferiority."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from the United StatesPhilosophers from the United States19th-century philosophersRomantic poetsEssayists from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Quotation and Originality
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803 – 1882
US-amerikanischer Philosoph und Dichter
423 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson →
Related Quotes
"Nature is no sentimentalist,—does not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and surly, and will no…"
"Masses are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not to be flattered, but to be sch…"
"Our modes of Education aim ... to do for masses what cannot be done for masses, what must be done reverently, one by …"
"The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects m…"
"Good ware makes a quick market."
"Ardi galdua atzeman daiteke, aldi galdua berriz ez."
"Vitur maður breytir hugum sÃnum, heimskingi vill aldrei."
"El tiempo perdido los santos lo lloran."
"Bonne renommée vaut mieux que ceinture dorée."
"Where McGregor sits, there is the head of the table."