Even More Emerson

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Basic Selections from Emerson, Eduard C. Lindeman (ed.), from Apothems (excerpts from Journals: numerals are date, Emerson's age, notebook, and page):

p. 152. The kingdom of thought is a proud aristocracy. (1824 - 20 - I 317)

p. 154. Why has my motley diary no jokes? Because it is a soliloquy and every man is grave alone. (1824 - 21 - I 393)

p. 157. A man is known by the books he reads, by the company he keeps, by the praise he gives, by his dress, by his tastes, by his distastes, by the stories he tells, by his gait, by the motion of his eye, by the look of his house, of his chamber; for nothing on earth is solitary, but everything hath affinities infinite.... (1830 - 27 - II 300)

It is a luxury to be understood. (1831 - 27 - II 368)

Persist, only persist in seeking the truth. Persist in saying you do not know what you do not know, and you do not care for what you do not care.... (1831 - 27 - II 379)

No man can write well who thinks there is any choice of words for him. (1831 - 28 - II 401)

p. 158. The things taught in colleges and schools are not an education, but the means of education. (1831 - 28 - II 404)

Books are to be read, and every library should be a circulating library. (1831 - 28 - II 407)

"Some minds think about things; others think the things themselves." Schelling (1831 - 28 - II 422)

The bubble of the Present is every moment hardening into the flint of the Past. (1832 - 28 - II 485)

p. 159. I count no man much because he cows or silences me. Any fool can do that. But if his conversation enriches or rejoices me, I must reckon him wise. (1834 - 30 - III 265)

p. 160. Write solid sentences, and you can even spare puctuation. (1834 - 30 - III 272)

I had observed long since that, to give the thought a just and full expression, I must not prematurely utter it. Better not talk of the matter you are writing out. It was as if you had let the spring snap too soon. I was glad to find Goethe say to the same point, that "he who seeks a hidden treasure must not speak." (1834 - 30 - III 273)

Do you not see that a man is a bundle of relations, that his entire strength consists not in his properties, but in his innumerable relations? (1836 - 33 - IV 167)

Economy does not consist in saving the coal, but in using the time whilst it burns. (1837 - 33 - IV 225)