quote · Source-linked selection
We sometimes see a change of expression in our companion, and say, His father or his mother comes to the windows of his eyes, and sometimes a remote relative. In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin—seven or eight ancestors at least—and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is.
We sometimes see a change of expression in our companion, and say, His father or his mother comes to the windows of his eyes, and sometimes a remote relative. In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin—seven or eight ancestors at least—and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is.
Approximate author period: c. 1842 AD · industrial
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- Author or tradition
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1842 AD · industrial
author lifetime midpoint (1803–1882)
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- Dictionary of Quotations (1893) (1893 AD)
Printed citation: Emerson. · page_529
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.
The voice behind the words.
Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.
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