Quotes by Lecturers - Page 20

The poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Poetry must be as new as foam, and as old as the rock.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived in some past world, two or three hundred years ago, says that which lies close to my own soul, that which I also had wellnigh thought and said.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is not metres, but a metre-making argument that makes a poem,—a thought so passionate and alive that like the spirit of a plant or an animal it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing. The thought and the form are equal in the order of time, but in the order of genesis the thought is prior to the form.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
All that we call sacred history attests that the birth of a poet is the principal event in chronology.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ideas must work through the brains and arms of men, or they are no better than dreams
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Language is fossil Poetry.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Imagination is a very high sort of seeing, which does not come by study, but by the intellect being where and what it sees, by sharing the path, or circuits of things through forms, and so making them translucid to others.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Everything in creation has its appointed painter or poet and remains in bondage like the princess in the fairy tale 'til its appropriate liberator comes to set it free.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
How does the ordinary person come to the transcendent? For a start, I would say, study poetry. Learn how to read a poem. You need not have the experience to get the message, or at least some indication of the message. It may come gradually. (92)
Joseph Campbell
The secret of poetry is never explained - is always new. We have not got farther than mere wonder at the delicacy of the touch, & the eternity it inherits. In every house a child that in mere play utters oracles, & knows not that they are such. 'Tis as easy as breath. 'Tis like this gravity, which holds the Universe together, & none knows what it is.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say 'It is in me, and shall out.' Stand there, balked and dumb, stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted, stand and strive, until at last rage draw out of thee that dream-power which every night shows thee is thine own; a power transcending all limit and privacy, and by virtue of which a man is the conductor of the whole river of electricity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every word was once a poem.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Some people will tell you there is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Quotation confesses inferiority.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Love what is simple and beautiful. These are the essentials.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The South-wind bringsLife, sunshine and desire,And on every mount and meadowBreathes aromatic fire;But over the dead he has no power,The lost, the lost, he cannot restore;And, looking over the hills, I mournThe darling who shall not return.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Modern romance, like Greek tragedy, celebrates the mystery of dismemberment, which is life in time. The happy ending is justly scorned as a misrepresentation; for the world, as we know it, as we have seen it, yields but one ending: death, disintegration, dismemberment, and the crucifixion of our heart with the passing of the forms that we have loved.
Joseph Campbell
When you realize that eternity is right here now, that it is within your possibility to experience the eternity of your own truth and being, then you grasp the following: That which you are was never born and will never die. . . . (90)
Joseph Campbell
Of all the ways to lose a person, death is the kindest.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
Hellen Keller
If the single man plants himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abides, this huge world will come around to him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Write it on your heartthat every day is the best day in the year.He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the daywho allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.Finish every day and be done with it.You have done what you could.Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;begin it well and serenely, with too high a spiritto be cumbered with your old nonsense.This new day is too dear,with its hopes and invitations,to waste a moment on the yesterdays.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a perfect contentment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Your smile is a messenger of your good will.
Dale Carnegie
Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.
Dale Carnegie
There is one kind of laugh that I always did recommend; it looks out of the eye first with a merry twinkle, then it creeps down on its hands and knees and plays around the mouth like a pretty moth around the blaze of a candle, then it steals over into the dimples of the cheeks and rides around in those whirlpools for a while, then it lights up the whole face like the mellow bloom on a damask rose, then it swims up on the air, with a peal as clear and as happy as a dinner-bell, then it goes back again on gold tiptoes like an angel out for an airing, and it lies down on its little bed of violets in the heart where it came from.
Josh Billings
In the whole history of the world there is but one thing that money cannot buy...to wit--the wag of a dog's tail.
Josh Billings
To fill the hour──that is happiness.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Remember, happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely upon what you think. So start each day by thinking of all the things you have to be thankful for. Your future will depend very largely on the thoughts you think today. So think thoughts of hope and confidence and love and success.
Dale Carnegie
The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Remember, happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have, it depends solely upon what you think.
Dale Carnegie
Everybody in the world is seeking happiness—and there is one sure way to find it. That is by controlling your thoughts. Happiness doesn't depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions.
Dale Carnegie
Success is getting what you want..Happiness is wanting what you get.
Dale Carnegie
Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
When you are on your path, and it is truly your path, doors will open for you where there were no doors for someone else.
Joseph Campbell
The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn
Ralph Waldo Emerson
One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness.
Josh Billings
Flattery is like cologne water, to be smelt of, not swallowed.
Josh Billings
When two partners always agree, one of them is not necessary." If there is some point you haven't thought about, be thankful if it is brought to your attention.
Dale Carnegie
If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent's good will.
Dale Carnegie
there is only one way under high heaven to get the best of an argument - and that is to avoid it .
Dale Carnegie
At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say,—'Come out unto us.' But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man convinced against his will Is of the same opinion still
Dale Carnegie
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
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell
Marrying for love may be a bit risky, but it is so honest that God can't help but smile on it.
Josh Billings
So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man,When Duty whispers low, 'Thou must,' The youth whispers, 'I can.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Garden is a metaphor for the following: our minds, and our thinking in terms of pairs of opposites--man and woman, good and evil--are as holy as that of a god. (50)
Joseph Campbell
Is the god the source, or is the god a human manner of conceiving of the force and energy that supports the world? In our tradition God is a male. This male and female differentiation is made, however, within the field of time and space, the field of duality. If God is beyond duality, you cannot say that God is a "He." You cannot say God is a "She." You cannot say God is an "It." (18)
Joseph Campbell
It may be a species of impudence to think that the way you understand God is the way God is. (60).
Joseph Campbell