Authenticated quotes from Essays: Second Series (Emerson)

For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “The Poet.” Essays: Second Series. Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1844.

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "The Poet (1844)." The Portable Emerson, edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. Penguin Classics, 2014.

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