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Ralph Waldo Emerson on Intelligence

1803–1882 United States

← All quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

15 quotes

The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue.

English Traits (1856)

We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates.

Letters and Social Aims (1876)

But genius looks forward: the eyes of men are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates.

The American Scholar (1837)

Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over influence.

The American Scholar (1837)

Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend.

When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

Great geniuses have the shortest biographies.

Representative Men (1850)

Works of the intellect are great only by comparison with each other.

There is a freemasonry among the dull by which they recognize and are sociable with the dull, as surely as a correspondent tact in men of genius.

Journals (1822)

For the prevision is allied
Unto the thing so signified;
Or say, the foresight that awaits
Is the same Genius that creates.

May-Day and Other Pieces (1867)

Common sense is as rare as genius.

The growth of the intellect is spontaneous in every expansion. The mind that grows could not predict the times, the means, the mode of that spontaneity. God enters by a private door into every individual.

Talent finds its models, methods, and ends, in society, exists for exhibition, and goes to the soul only for power to work. Genius is its own end, and draws its means and the style of its architecture from within.

Nor mourn the unalterable Days
That Genius goes and Folly stays.

May-Day and Other Pieces (1867)

'Tis good-will makes intelligence.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Ralph Waldo Emerson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.