Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume 1Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1876 - American essays |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 83
Page 11
... genius is illustrated by the entire series of days . Man is explicable by nothing less than all his history . With- out hurry , without rest , the human spirit goes forth from the beginning to embody every faculty , every thought ...
... genius is illustrated by the entire series of days . Man is explicable by nothing less than all his history . With- out hurry , without rest , the human spirit goes forth from the beginning to embody every faculty , every thought ...
Page 13
... genius — anywhere lose our ear , anywhere make us feel that we intrude , that this is for better men ; but rather is it true , that in their grandest strokes we feel most at home . All that Shakspeare says of the king , yonder slip of a ...
... genius — anywhere lose our ear , anywhere make us feel that we intrude , that this is for better men ; but rather is it true , that in their grandest strokes we feel most at home . All that Shakspeare says of the king , yonder slip of a ...
Page 16
... genius and creative prin- ciple of each and of all eras in my own mind . --- We are always coming up with the emphatic facts of history in our private experience , and verifying them here . All history becomes subjective ; in other ...
... genius and creative prin- ciple of each and of all eras in my own mind . --- We are always coming up with the emphatic facts of history in our private experience , and verifying them here . All history becomes subjective ; in other ...
Page 18
... genius , obeying its law , knows how to play with them as a young child plays with graybeards , and in churches . Genius studies the causal thought , and far back , in the womb of things , sees the rays parting from one orb , that ...
... genius , obeying its law , knows how to play with them as a young child plays with graybeards , and in churches . Genius studies the causal thought , and far back , in the womb of things , sees the rays parting from one orb , that ...
Page 19
... genius . We have the civil history of that people , as Herodotus , Thu- cydides , Xenophon , and Plutarch have given it ; a very sufficient account of what manner of persons they were , and what they did . We have the same national mind ...
... genius . We have the civil history of that people , as Herodotus , Thu- cydides , Xenophon , and Plutarch have given it ; a very sufficient account of what manner of persons they were , and what they did . We have the same national mind ...
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
action Æsop animal appear beauty begin to hope behold better black event Bonduca Cæsar Calvinistic character chivalry church conversation divine earth Epaminondas eternal experience expression fact fancy feel flower force friendship genius gifts give hand heart heaven Heraclitus hour human individual intellect less light live look man's manner marriage ment mind moral Napoleon nature never object ourselves painted Parliament of Love party pass perfect persons Plato Plotinus Plutarch poet poetry present Proclus prudence Pythagoras RALPH WALDO EMERSON relations religion rich sculpture secret seems sense sentiment Shakspeare society Sophocles soul speak spirit stand stars sweet symbol talent thee things thou thought tion to-day true truth universal virtue whilst whole wisdom wise wonderful words Xenophon youth Zoroaster
Popular passages
Page 47 - What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within?" my friend suggested, — "But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child. I will live then from the Devil.
Page 282 - Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.
Page 215 - Meantime within man is the soul of the whole ; the wise silence ; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist, and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object are one.
Page 19 - So every spirit, as it is most pure, And hath in it the more of heavenly light, So it the fairer body doth procure To habit in, and it more fairly dight, With cheerful grace and amiable sight. For, of the soul, the body form doth take, For soul is form, and doth the body make.
Page 269 - God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please, — you can never have both. Between these, as a pendulum, man oscillates. He in whom the love of repose predominates will accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the first political party he meets, — most likely his father's. He gets test, commodity, and reputation ; but he shuts the door of truth.
Page 50 - If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for the government or against it, spread your table like base housekeepers, — under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are. And, of course, so much force is withdrawn from your proper life. But do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself.
Page 97 - Even so doth God protect us if we be Virtuous and wise. Winds blow, and waters roll, Strength to the brave, and power, and deity, Yet in themselves are nothing...
Page 37 - Banks and tariffs, the newspaper and caucus, Methodism and Unitarianism, are flat and dull to dull people, but rest on the same foundations of wonder as the town of Troy, and the temple of Delphos, and are as swiftly passing away.
Page 49 - What I must do, is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.
Page 241 - But the heart refuses to be imprisoned ; in its first and narrowest pulses it already tends outward with a vast force and to immense and innumerable expansions.