Quotes about Insight

The ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature," become at last one maxim.

Genius is religious.

What's a book? Everything or nothing. The eye that sees it all.

There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all parts, that is, the poet.

There is no teaching until the pupil is brought into the same state or principle in which you are; a transfusion takes place; he is you and you are he; then is a teaching, and by no unfriendly chance or bad company can he ever quite lose the benefit.

We are all wise. The difference between persons is not in wisdom but in art. I knew, in an academical club, a person who always deferred to me; who, seeing my whim for writing, fancied that my experiences had somewhat superior; whilst I saw that his experiences were as good as mine. Give them to me and I would make the same use of them.

And, in fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature," become at last one maxim.

Shallow people believe in luck and in circumstances; Strong people believe in cause and effect.

The landscape belongs to the person who looks at it.

There is a property inside the horizon which no guy has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, this is, the poet.

There is then creative reading as well as creative writing

Our eyes are holden that we cannot see things that stare us in the face, until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened; then we behold them, and the time when we saw them not is like a dream. — Ralph Waldo Emerson, from "Spiritual Laws," Essays and Lectures . (Library of America November 15, 1983)