Quotes About Inspiration

A beautiful woman is a practical poet, taming her savage mate, planting tenderness, hope and eloquence in all whom she approaches.

The presence of a higher, namely, of the spiritual element is essential to its perfection.

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine

With a geometry of sunbeams, the soul lays the foundations of nature.

The writer is an explorer. Every step is an advance into a new land.

He who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling with the souls of other men, from living, breathing, reading, and writing in the daily, time-worn yoke of their opinions.

Transcendentalists believe that our minds are always open to a new inflowing of light and power from the Source. This is called inspiration.

Inspiring passion and action—this is the test of true preaching. True preaching is practical—concerned with day-to-day living in light of the soul. It's focus is not on the distant past or an imaginary future, but on the here and now.

Transcendentalists assert that the human mind is the same—and just as open to inspiration—across all boundaries of geography, culture, race, and religion. They celebrate the expansive, daring explorations of the Eastern mind, and find much wisdom in Hinduism and Buddhism.

What your heart thinks great is great. The soul's emphasis is always right.

The aspect of nature is devout. Like the figure of Jesus, she stands with bended head, and hands folded upon the breast. The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.

1842  Son Waldo (age 5) dies of scarlet fever.  Journalist Walt Whitman (age 23) attends Emerson's lecture on poetry in New York City. In his report for the New York Aurora, Whitman writes that it was the "richest and most beautiful" lecture he'd ever heard. On the same New York trip, Emerson becomes godfather to newborn William James, son of his friend, Henry James, Sr.

I see the boundless opulence of the pencil, the indifferency in which the artist stands free to choose out of the possible forms. If he can draw everything, why draw anything?

The knowledge of picture-dealers has its value, but listen not to their criticism when your heart is touched by genius. It was not painted for them, it was painted for you; for such as had eyes capable of being touched by simplicity and lofty emotions.

In groves of oak, or fanes of gold, Still floats upon the morning wind, Still whispers to the willing mind.

Instead of trying to create a new religion from scratch, aim to breathe new life into the forms that already exist. If you are alive, you'll enliven all you touch. To revive faith from dead tradition, three things are needed: soul, soul, and more soul.

the sermon, that most flexible of art forms. Take the form of the sermon and make it your own. Whether you are standing behind a pulpit, in a lecture hall, or in a field, nothing can stop you from speaking the truth according to your life and conscience. The hearts of the people are thirsty for new hope and new revelation.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm

Go out of the house to see the moon, and' t is mere tinsel; {it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey.

Tis not in the high stars alone, Nor in the cup of budding flowers, Nor in the redbreast's mellow tone, Nor in the bow that smiles in showers, But in the mud and scum of things There alway, alway something sings.

of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance

and beauty and goodness comes to each man directly, in flashes of spiritual light

For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down...

Over everything stands its daemon or soul, and, as the form of the thing is reflected by the eye, so the soul of the thing is reflected by a melody.