Skip to content

Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone; yet he is no more to be credited with the grand result than the acaleph which adds a cell to the coral reef which is the basis of the continent.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson Letters and Social Aims (1876)

Another quote →

Topics

Communication

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

I wish to write such rhymes as shall not suggest a restraint, but contrariwise the wildest freedom.

Journals (1822)

The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.

The man who renounces himself, comes to himself.

Divinity College Address (1838)

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

Poems (1847)

He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.

The Method of Nature (1841)

All Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes →

You may also like

Strength of creative writing lies in the skill of handling words and articulating artistic expression of feelings.”

Suman Pokhrel

An entire mythology is stored within our language.

Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993)

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.

George Eliot

Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth,
When thought is speech, and speech is truth.

Walter Scott Marmion (1808)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ralph Waldo Emerson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.