“The man in the street does not know a star in the sky.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance

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 "The man in the street does not know a star in the sky." by Ralph Waldo Emerson?

Ralph Waldo Emerson 727

American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803–1882

Related quotes

“Just because a man glances up at the sky at night does not make him an astronomer, you know.”

John Boyne book The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

Source: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

“in the street of the sky night walks scattering poems”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Source: Selected Poems

“Over all the sky—the sky! far, far out of reach, studded with the eternal stars.”

Walt Whitman book Drum-Taps

Drum-Taps. Bivouac on a Mountain-side
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“More stars fall from the loosened sky.”
Pluraque laxato ceciderunt sidera caelo.

Statius book Thebaid

Source: Thebaid, Book X, Line 145

“Man: [looking at a Stieglitz's photo of 'Equivalents'] Is this a photograph of water?
Stieglitz: What difference does it make of what it is a photograph?
Man: But is it a photograph of water?
Stieglitz: I tell you it does not matter.
Man: Well, then, is it a picture of the sky?
Stieglitz: It happens to be a picture of the sky. But I cannot understand why that is of any importance.”

Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) American photographer

w:Dorothy Norman recorded a conversation between Stieglitz and a man, looking at one of his 'Equivalents' prints
Source: 'Minor White, A Living Remembrance', Dorothy Norman, in 'Aperture', 1984, p. 9.

“The swarm of ducks so darkens the sky that poor Europe does not know which way to go”

Honoré Daumier (1808–1879) French printmaker, caricaturist, painter, and sculptor

original French text: 'La nuée des canards obscurcissant tellement l'air que la pauvre Europe ne sait plus quel chemin prendre'
title/caption in Daumier's print; published in 'La Caricature', 1833-35; number 3601 in the catalogue raisonné by Loys Delteil, Le peintre-graveur illustré, Vol. 28 (New York: Da Capo Press, 1969); as quoted on samfoxschool http://samfoxschool.wustl.edu/node/11263#footnote-1-ref
The word 'canards' refers to physical ducks; it also means unfounded rumors or exaggerated stories. Ducks, symbolizing rumors was a visual motif Daumier used both before and after this print
1830's