Essays - First SeriesThe Floating Press, 2009 M01 1 - 314 pages American essayist, philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882) lead Transcendentalism in the early nineteenth century and greatly influenced the later New Thought movement. Summing up his work, Emerson said that his primary principle was "the infinitude of the private man", and advised to "make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you." His First Series collects together the following 12 essays: History, Self-Reliance, Compensation, Spiritual Laws, Love, Friendship, Prudence, Heroism, The Over-Soul, Circles, Intellect and Art. |
From inside the book
Page 5
... spirit goes forth from the beginning to embody every faculty, every thought, every emotion, which belongs to it, in appropriate events. But the thought is always prior to the fact, all the facts of history preexist in the mind as laws ...
... spirit goes forth from the beginning to embody every faculty, every thought, every emotion, which belongs to it, in appropriate events. But the thought is always prior to the fact, all the facts of history preexist in the mind as laws ...
Page 14
... 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 outline and texture are changed again. Nothing is so fleeting as form; yet never does it quite deny itself ...
... 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 outline and texture are changed again. Nothing is so fleeting as form; yet never does it quite deny itself ...
Page 16
... explained to him. In a certain state of thought is the common origin of very diverse works. It is the spirit and not the fact that is identical. By a deeper apprehension, and not primarily by a painful acquisition of many 16.
... explained to him. In a certain state of thought is the common origin of very diverse works. It is the spirit and not the fact that is identical. By a deeper apprehension, and not primarily by a painful acquisition of many 16.
Page 21
... the love of adventure or the love of repose happens to predominate. A man of rude health and flowing spirits has the faculty of rapid domestication, lives in his wagon and roams through all latitudes as easily as a Calmuc. At sea, or in 21.
... the love of adventure or the love of repose happens to predominate. A man of rude health and flowing spirits has the faculty of rapid domestication, lives in his wagon and roams through all latitudes as easily as a Calmuc. At sea, or in 21.
Page 26
... spirits come by us at intervals, who disclose to us new facts in nature. I see that men of God have from time to time walked among men and made their commission felt in the heart and soul of the commonest hearer. Hence evidently the ...
... spirits come by us at intervals, who disclose to us new facts in nature. I see that men of God have from time to time walked among men and made their commission felt in the heart and soul of the commonest hearer. Hence evidently the ...
Contents
4 | |
39 | |
Compensation | 80 |
Spiritual Laws | 112 |
Love | 145 |
Friendship | 164 |
Prudence | 188 |
Heroism | 207 |
The OverSoul | 226 |
Circles | 254 |
Intellect | 274 |
Art | 295 |
Endnotes | 313 |
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Common terms and phrases
action Aeschylus affection appear beauty become behold better black event Bonduca character circumstance conversation divine doctrine earth Epaminondas eternal evanescent experience fable fact fear feel flower flowing fluid friendship genius gifts give Greek hand heart heaven Heraclitus heroism hour human imagination influence instinct intellect less light live look lose man's marriage mind moral nature never noble object ourselves Over-Soul painted pass passion perception perfect persons Petrarch Phidias Phocion Plato Plotinus Plutarch poet poetry prudence Pyrrhonism reflection relations religion Rome sculpture secret seek seems seen sense sensual sentiment Shakspeare society Socrates Sophocles soul speak Spinoza spirit stand Stoicism sweet talent teach thee things thou thought to-day trifles true truth universal virtue whilst whole wisdom wise words Xenophon youth Zoroaster