The delicate muses lose their head if their attention is once diverted. Perhaps if you were successful abroad in talking and dealing with men, you would not come back to your bookshelf and your task. When the spirit chooses you for its scribe to publish some commandment, it makes you odious to men and men odious to you, and you shall accept that loathsomeness with joy. The moth must fly to the lamp, and you must solve those questions though you die.
Ralph Waldo EmersonThings are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.
Ralph Waldo EmersonWe fancy men are individuals; so are pumpkins; but every pumpkin in the field goes through every point of pumpkin history.
Ralph Waldo EmersonIt is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.
Ralph Waldo EmersonThe martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.
Ralph Waldo Emerson