"It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances"
About this Quote
But the subtext is sharper. By calling it "a fact often observed", Emerson strips passion of its mystique and treats it like a repeatable phenomenon, almost a natural law. Inspiration becomes less divine visitation than a predictable pressure system: crank the emotions, and language sometimes rises to meet it. That "sometimes" matters. He’s not crowning passion as the highest muse; he’s noting its peculiar efficiency, and implying its unreliability. The clause "who cannot write well under other circumstances" lands like a quiet indictment. If your best work only appears when you’re wrecked by feeling, you’re not an artist so much as a weather vane.
Contextually, Emerson is writing in a 19th-century America negotiating between Romantic intensity and his own Transcendentalist emphasis on self-reliance and discipline of mind. He respects emotion as access to truth, but distrusts dependence on any external condition - even your own mood. The sentence is built like a controlled experiment: passion produces a spike; baseline ability tells the real story. The real Emersonian ideal isn’t the accidental poem born of heartbreak; it’s the person who can summon clarity without needing to bleed first.
Quote Details
| Topic | Poetry |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. (2026, January 18). It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-a-fact-often-observed-that-men-have-written-14183/
Chicago Style
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances." FixQuotes. January 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-a-fact-often-observed-that-men-have-written-14183/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances." FixQuotes, 18 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-a-fact-often-observed-that-men-have-written-14183/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2026.
