Why covet a knowledge of new facts? Day and night, house and garden, a few books, a few actions, serve us as well as would all trades and all spectacles. We are far from having exhausted the significance of the few symbols we use. We can come to use them yet with a terrible simplicity.Ralph Waldo Emerson
About This Quote
In this quote, Edgar Allan Poe is making a statement about the beauty of simplicity. He says that the beauty of life lies less in the abundance of knowledge, and more in the ability to understand that knowledge. He also makes a point that we should not covet a knowledge of new facts. In other words, we should not feel the need to learn all there is to know about a topic. Knowledge can be overwhelming, he says, and it takes a great deal of focus and discipline to keep from being overwhelmed by it.
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More Quotes By Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Love, and you shall be loved.
- He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.
- The Artist always has the masters in his eyes.
- Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
- It is not the length of life, but the depth.