Quotes from book
Experience

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Experience" is an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was published in the collection Essays: Second Series in 1844. The essay is preceded by a poem of the same title.

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Experience

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Experience

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience
Context: Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus.

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Experience

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience
Variant: Nature and books belong to all who see them.

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“The years teach much which the days never know.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Experience

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience

Ralph Waldo Emerson quote: “We do what we must, and call it by the best names we can.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“We do what we must, and call it by the best names we can.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Experience

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“The Indian who was laid under a curse, that the wind should not blow on him, nor water flow to him, nor fire burn him, is a type of us all. The dearest events are summer-rain, and we the Para coats that shed every drop. Nothing is left us now but death. We look to that with a grim satisfaction, saying, there at least is reality that will not dodge us.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Experience

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Do you see that kitten chasing so prettily her own tail? If you could look with her eyes, you might see her surrounded with hundreds of figures performing complex dramas, with tragic and comic issues, long conversations, many characters, many ups and downs of fate, — and meantime it is only puss and her tail. How long before our masquerade will end its noise of tambourines, laughter, and shouting, and we shall find it was a solitary performance?”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Experience

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Every ship is a romantic object, except that we sail in.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Experience

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“A man is a golden impossibility. The line he must walk is a hair's breadth. The wise through excess of wisdom is made a fool.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Experience

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“I know that the world I converse with in the city and in the farms, is not the world I think. I observe that difference, and shall observe it. One day I shall know the value and law of this discrepance. But I have not found that much was gained by manipular attempts to realize the world of thought.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Experience

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“The wise through excess of wisdom is made a fool.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Experience

Experience
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Of what use is genius, if the organ is too convex or too concave and cannot find a focal distance within the actual horizon of human life?”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Experience

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to skate well on them.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Experience

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience

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