"One more royal trait properly belongs to..." - Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson
One more royal trait properly belongs to the poet. I mean his cheerfulness, without which no man can be a poet,--for beauty is his aim. He loves virtue, not for its obligation, but for its grace; he delights in the world, in man, in woman, for the lovely light that sparkles from them. Beauty, the spirit of joy and hilarity, he sheds over the universe.
More by Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Every man's condition is a solution in hieroglyph to those inquiries he would put. He acts it as life before he apprehends it as truth.”
“Do what you're afraid to do.”
“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.”
More on Poetry
“What verse is for the poet, dialectical thinking is for the philosopher. He grasps for it in order to get hold of his own enchantment, in order to perpetuate it.”
“The great poem must have the stamp of greatness as well as its essence.”
“love as a passion—it is our European specialty—must absolutely be of noble origin; as is well known, its invention is due to the Provencal poet-cavaliers, those brilliant, ingenious men of the "gai saber," to whom Europe owes so much, and almost owes itself.”
More on Beauty
“Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, and creeds follow one another like the withered leaves of Autumn; but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons and a possession for all eternity.”
“The most beautiful experience in the world is the experience of the mysterious.”
“What is art? Nature concentrated.”