“I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them.”

—  Ralph Waldo Emerson

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Friendship

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them." by Ralph Waldo Emerson?
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson 727
American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803–1882

Related quotes

Abraham Lincoln photo

“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

His response when "accused of treating his opponents with too much courtesy and kindness, and when it was pointed out to him that his whole duty was to destroy them", as quoted in More New Testament Words (1958) by William Barclay; either this anecdote or Lincoln's reply may have been adapted from a reply attributed to Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund:
:* Some courtiers reproached the Emperor Sigismond that, instead of destroying his conquered foes, he admitted them to favour. “Do I not,” replied the illustrious monarch, “effectually destroy my enemies, when I make them my friends?”
::* "Daily Facts" in The Family Magazine Vol. IV (1837), p. 123 http://books.google.de/books?id=aW0EAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA123&dq=destroy; also quoted as simply in "Do I not effectually destroy my enemies, in making them my friends?" in The Sociable Story-teller (1846)
Disputed

G. K. Chesterton photo

“I cannot understand the people who take literature seriously; but I can love them, and I do. Out of my love I warn them to keep clear of this book.”

G. K. Chesterton book All Things Considered

"The Case for the Ephemeral"
All Things Considered (1908)
Context: I cannot understand the people who take literature seriously; but I can love them, and I do. Out of my love I warn them to keep clear of this book. It is a collection of crude and shapeless papers upon current or rather flying subjects; and they must be published pretty much as they stand. They were written, as a rule, at the last moment; they were handed in the moment before it was too late, and I do not think that our commonwealth would have been shaken to its foundations if they had been handed in the moment after. They must go out now, with all their imperfections on their head, or rather on mine; for their vices are too vital to be improved with a blue pencil, or with anything I can think of, except dynamite.
Their chief vice is that so many of them are very serious; because I had no time to make them flippant. It is so easy to be solemn; it is so hard to be frivolous.

“Strength is paradoxical. I am not strong because I can force others to do what I wish as a result of my play with them, but because I can allow them to do what they wish in the course of my play with them.”

James P. Carse American academic

Source: Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility

William Ewart Gladstone photo

“I would tell them of my own intention to keep my counsel…and I will venture to recommend them, as an old Parliamentary hand, to do the same.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1886/jan/21/first-eight in the House of Commons (21 January 1886).
1880s

Wong Kar-wai photo

“You try to cope with the mass audience, but in fact you are not doing something for them—I would be fighting with myself. I thought, I don’t have to make big films, I can make small films that I can be happy with. I can find my own audience.”

Wong Kar-wai (1958) Hong Kong screenwriter, film producer and film director

"Wong Kar-wai by Han Ong" in Bomb Magazine (1 Janaury 1998) https://bombmagazine.org/articles/wong-kar-wai-1/

“Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.”

Arnold Lobel (1933–1987) American children's illustrator and writer
Johnny Depp photo

“If someone were to harm my family or a friend or somebody I love, I would eat them. I might end up in jail for 500 years, but I would eat them.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician
Larry Bird photo

“I know the rigors of the NBA and what these guys can expect. I know my job is to prepare them, to get them in shape. We'll find a good offense and a good defense. And then let's do it.”

Larry Bird (1956) basketball player and coach

Bob Ryan (October 31, 1997) "Bird Setting Feverish Pace With Indiana", Boston Globe, p. E1.

Socrates photo

“When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you to trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing — then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, I and my sons will have received justice at your hands.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

41e–42a
Plato, Apology

Related topics