“A good symbol is the best argument, and is a missionary to persuade thousands.”

Poetry and Imagination
1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Books, Letters and Social Aims http://www.rwe.org/comm/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=5&id=74&Itemid=149 (1876)

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 "A good symbol is the best argument, and is a missionary to persuade thousands." by Ralph Waldo Emerson?
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson 727
American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803–1882

Related quotes

Benjamin Peirce photo

“Symbols are essential to comprehensive argument.”

Benjamin Peirce (1809–1880) American mathematician

On the Uses and Transformations of Linear Algebra (1875)
Context: Some definite interpretation of a linear algebra would, at first sight, appear indispensable to its successful application. But on the contrary, it is a singular fact, and one quite consonant with the principles of sound logic, that its first and general use is mostly to be expected from its want of significance. The interpretation is a trammel to the use. Symbols are essential to comprehensive argument.

Jules Verne photo

“What good would it be to discuss such a proposition, when force could destroy the best arguments?”

A quoi bon discuter une proposition semblable, quand la force peut détruire les meilleurs arguments.
Part I, ch. X: The Man of the Seas
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)

Saul Bellow photo

“There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

Quoted by Granville Hicks in The Living Novel: A Symposium (Macmillan, 1957; digitized version in 2006), p. ix
General sources

Primo Levi photo
Aneurin Bevan photo

“What argument have they to persuade the young men to fight except merely in another squalid attempt to defend themselves against a redistribution of the international swag?”

Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) Welsh politician

Hansard, House of Commons 5th series, vol. 346, col. 2139.
Speech in the House of Commons on 4 May 1939 opposing conscription.
1930s

Algernon Sidney photo

“I am persuaded to believe that God had left nations to the liberty of setting up such governments as best pleased themselves, and that magistrates were set up for the good of nations, not nations for the honor and glory of magistrates.”

Algernon Sidney (1623–1683) British politician and political theorist

Scaffold speech (1683)
Context: I am persuaded to believe that God had left nations to the liberty of setting up such governments as best pleased themselves, and that magistrates were set up for the good of nations, not nations for the honor and glory of magistrates. That the right and power of magistrates in every country was that which the laws of that country made it to be. That these laws are to be observed and the oaths taken by rulers to be kept. And that having the force of contracts between magistrates and people, they cannot be violated without danger of dissolving the whole fabric.

Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell photo
Asger Jorn photo

“If a symbolic language dies, it tortures us like a nightmare, like a thousand piece orchestra grating on our nerves and tearing our mind to pieces... It is a corpse with no symbolic power or strength.”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

quoted in Asger Jorn (2002) by Arken Museum of Modern Art, p. 166
Jorn is talking about symbolism of the Nordic myths
1959 - 1973, Various sources

John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher photo

“I thought it would be a good thing to be a missionary, but I thought it would be better to be First Sea Lord.”

John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher (1841–1920) Royal Navy admiral of the fleet

p. 273. https://archive.org/stream/memoriesbyadmira00fishuoft#page/273/mode/1up
Memories (1919) https://archive.org/stream/memoriesbyadmira00fishuoft#page/n0/mode/2up

Related topics