brief quotes of Emerson on writing

               

          Emerson is the scholar, which means, the writer. Every one of his words has a strange meaning: watch out! Here is a set of his words of advice, chopped and grilled into proverbs:

 

The way to write is to throw your body at the mark when your arrows are spent.

Use only the 3 or 4 stubborn words.

Reattach things to nature: fasten words to the visible.

Superlative is fatty.

An accomplished style: nothing can be added to it, nothing taken from it.

 

Try anything – tricks, makeshifts, tragedy.

Prize first thoughts, hints, glimmers, premonitions, 1st forming, harbingers, 1st impressions.

 

When your mind is creative, don’t read.

Divine books: read the least of them.

Trust the glance not the gaze.

 

Never be absorbed in a book, reading long at one time anything, no matter how fascinating destroys thought, as the inflections forced by the external causes. Stop if you become absorbed, at even the first paragraph.

 

quest?ON

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