Essays, First SeriesHoughton, Osgood and Company, 1879 - 290 pages |
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Page 9
Ralph Waldo Emerson. HISTORY . THERE is no great and no small To the Soul that maketh all : And where it cometh , all things are ; And it cometh everywhere . 1 * I AM owner of the sphere , Of the seven HISTORY.
Ralph Waldo Emerson. HISTORY . THERE is no great and no small To the Soul that maketh all : And where it cometh , all things are ; And it cometh everywhere . 1 * I AM owner of the sphere , Of the seven HISTORY.
Page 13
... things . Human life as containing this is mysterious and inviolable , and we hedge it round with penalties and laws . All laws derive hence their ultimate reason ; all express more or less distinctly some com- mand of this supreme ...
... things . Human life as containing this is mysterious and inviolable , and we hedge it round with penalties and laws . All laws derive hence their ultimate reason ; all express more or less distinctly some com- mand of this supreme ...
Page 16
... things in astronomy which had long been known . The better for him . ---- History must be this or it is nothing . Every law which the state enacts indicates a fact in human nature ; that is all . We must in ourselves see the necessary ...
... things in astronomy which had long been known . The better for him . ---- History must be this or it is nothing . Every law which the state enacts indicates a fact in human nature ; that is all . We must in ourselves see the necessary ...
Page 18
... 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 , every plant , every animal in its growth ...
... 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 , every plant , every animal in its growth ...
Page 19
... things to its own will . The adamant streams into soft but precise form before it , and whilst I look at it , its outline and texture are changed again . Nothing is so fleeting as form ; yet never does it quite deny itself . In man we ...
... things to its own will . The adamant streams into soft but precise form before it , and whilst I look at it , its outline and texture are changed again . Nothing is so fleeting as form ; yet never does it quite deny itself . In man we ...
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action affection appear beauty becomes behold better black event Bonduca Cæsar Calvinistic character conversation divine doctrine earth Egypt Epaminondas eternal evanescent experience fable fact fear feel friendship genius gifts give Greek hand heart heaven Heraclitus hour human instinct intellect less light ligion live look lose man's marriage mind moral nature never noble object ourselves OVER-SOUL paint pass passion perception perfect persons Petrarch Phidias Phocion Pindar Plato Plotinus Plutarch poet poetry proverb prudence Pyrrhonism RALPH WALDO EMERSON relations religion Rome sculpture secret seek seems seen sense sensual sentiment Shakspeare society Sophocles soul speak Spinoza spirit stand star Stoicism sweet talent teach thee things thou thought tion to-day true truth universal virtue whilst whole wisdom wise words Xenophon youth
Popular passages
Page 52 - A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.
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 65 - If any man consider the present aspects of what is called by distinction society, he will see the need of these ethics. The sinew and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous, desponding whimperers.
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 66 - ... complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always like a cat falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not 'studying a profession,' for he does not postpone his life, but lives already.
Page 170 - ... each stands for the whole world. What is so great as friendship, let us carry with what grandeur of spirit we can. Let us be silent, — so we may hear the whisper of the gods. Let us not interfere. Who set you to cast about what you should say to the select souls, or how to say anything to such P No matter how ingenious, no matter how graceful and bland.
Page 95 - The absolute balance of Give and Take, the doctrine that every thing has its price, and if that price is not paid, not that thing but something else is obtained, and that it is impossible to get anything without its price, is not less sublime in the columns of a ledger than in the budgets of states, in the laws of light and darkness, in all the action and reaction of nature.
Page 70 - I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe, for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things. In Thebes, in Palmyra, his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as they. He carries ruins to ruins.
Page 44 - There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance ; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion ; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.
Page 214 - We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. 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.