Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson, known professionally as Waldo Emerson, was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth25 May 1803
CountryUnited States of America
Private, accidental, confidential conversation breeds thought. Clubs produce oftener words.
Conversation is the laboratory and workshop of the student.
Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.
Conversation is our account of ourselves...Conversation is the vent of character as well as thoughts...It is the laboratory of the student.
Society is frivolous, and shreds its day into scraps, its conversation into ceremonies and escapes.
Conversation is an evanescent relation,--no more.
I feel the same truth how often in my trivial conversation with my neighbours, that somewhat higher in each of us overlooks this by-play, and Jove nods to Jove from behind each of us.
The best of life is conversation.
Conversation is a game of circles.
A man of no conversation should smoke.
As we are, so we associate. The good, by affinity, seek the good; the vile, by affinity, the vile. Thus of their own volition, souls proceed into Heaven, into Hell.
A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life: he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.
Wherever the invitation of men or your own occasions lead you, speak the very truth, as your life and conscience teach it, and cheer the waiting, fainting hearts of men with new hope and new revelation.
We have listened too long to the courtly Muses of Europe.