John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.
Page 621
| Ralph Waldo Emerson. (1803–1882) (continued) |
| 6318 |
| In skating over thin ice our safety is our speed. |
| Prudence. |
| 6319 |
| Shallow men believe in luck. |
| Worship. |
| 6320 |
| Heroism feels and never reasons and therefore is always right. |
| Heroism. |
| 6321 |
| The faith that stands on authority is not faith. |
| The Over-soul. |
| 6322 |
| God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. |
| Intellect. |
| 6323 |
| His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong. |
| Greatness. |
| 6324 |
| We boil at different degrees. |
| Eloquence. |
| 6325 |
| Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce? |
| Works and Days. |
| 6326 |
| Self-trust is the first secret of success. |
| Success. |
| 6327 |
| Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. 1 |
| Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality. |
| 6328 |
| When Shakespeare is charged with debts to his authors, Landor replies, “Yet he was more original than his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them into life.” |
| Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality. |
| 6329 |
| In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent. |
| Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality. |
| Note 1. There is not less wit nor less invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought. Cardinal du Perron has been heard to say that the happy application of a verse of Virgil has deserved a talent.—Bayle: vol. ii. p. 779. Though old the thought and oft exprest, ’T is his at last who says it best. Lowell: For an Autograph. [back] |