Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume 1Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1876 - American essays |
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Page 13
... poets , the romancers , do not in their stateliest pictures , - in the sacerdotal , the imperial palaces , in the triumphs of will or of genius — anywhere lose our ear , anywhere make us feel that we intrude , that this is for better ...
... poets , the romancers , do not in their stateliest pictures , - in the sacerdotal , the imperial palaces , in the triumphs of will or of genius — anywhere lose our ear , anywhere make us feel that we intrude , that this is for better ...
Page 18
... poet , to the philosopher , to the saint , all things are friendly and sacred , all events profitable , all days holy , all men divine . For the eye is fastened on the life , and slights the circum- stance . Every chemical substance ...
... poet , to the philosopher , to the saint , all things are friendly and sacred , all events profitable , all days holy , all men divine . For the eye is fastened on the life , and slights the circum- stance . Every chemical substance ...
Page 19
... poet makes twenty fables with one moral . Through the bruteness and toughness of matter , a subtle spirit bends all things to its own will . The adamant streams into soft but precise form before it , and whilst I look at it , its ...
... poet makes twenty fables with one moral . Through the bruteness and toughness of matter , a subtle spirit bends all things to its own will . The adamant streams into soft but precise form before it , and whilst I look at it , its ...
Page 22
... poet's mind ; the true ship is the shipbuilder . In the man , could we lay him open , we should see the reason for the last flourish and tendril of his work ; as every spine and tint in the sea - shell pre- exist in the secreting organs ...
... poet's mind ; the true ship is the shipbuilder . In the man , could we lay him open , we should see the reason for the last flourish and tendril of his work ; as every spine and tint in the sea - shell pre- exist in the secreting organs ...
Page 31
... poet was no odd fellow who described strange and impossible situations , but that universal man wrote by his pen a confession true for one and true for all . His own secret biography he finds in lines wonder- fully intelligible to him ...
... poet was no odd fellow who described strange and impossible situations , but that universal man wrote by his pen a confession true for one and true for all . His own secret biography he finds in lines wonder- fully intelligible to him ...
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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.