Ralph Waldo Emerson Answers Quotations

An answer in words is delusive; it is really no answer to the questions you ask.

Every discourse is an approximate answer: but it is of small consequence, that we do not get it into verbs and nouns, whilst it abides for contemplation forever.

What is civilization? I answer, the power of good women.

It is the privilege of any human work which is well done to invest the doer with a certain haughtiness. He can well afford not to conciliate, whose faithful work will answer for him.

I admire answers to which no answers can be made.

There is a mortifying experience in particular, which does not fail to wreak itself also in the general history; I mean "the foolish face of praise," the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease, in answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, not spontaneously moved but moved, by a low usurping wilfulness, grow tight about the outline of the face, with the most disagreeable sensation.

The soul answers never by words, but by the thing itself that is inquired after.

Moller, in his Essay on Architecture, taught that the building which was fitted accurately to answer its end would turn out to be beautiful, though beauty had not been intended. I find the like unity in human structures rather virulent and pervasive.

Why should I hasten to solve every riddle which life offers me? I am well assured that the Questioner, who brings me so many problems, will bring me the answers also, in due time.

The secret is the answer to all that has been, all that is, and all that will ever be.

When we have arrived at the question, the answer is already near.

We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has not superfluous parts; which exactly answers its ends.