Culture, Behavior, Beauty: Books, Art Eloquence. Power, Wealth, IllusionsHoughton, Mifflin, 1870 - 319 pages |
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Culture, Behavior, Beauty: Books, Art Eloquence. Power, Wealth, Illusions Ralph Waldo Emerson No preview available - 2015 |
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action advantage appear beauty become begin believe better body bring build carry character culture effect eloquence express eyes face fact fancy feel fine force friends genius give ground hands higher horse human hundred imagination interest keep kind leading leave less live look manners master means mind moral names Nature necessity never object observe opinion orator organic painting pass persons play pleasure poet poetry politics poor reason rule secret seems seen sense serve social society soul speak speech spirit stand strength success talent things thought thousand tion true universal wealth whole wise wish young youth
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Page 7 - A company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civil countries, in a thousand years, have set in best order the results of their learning and wisdom. The men themselves were hid and inaccessible, solitary, impatient of interruption, fenced by etiquette; but the thought which they did not uncover to their bosom friend is here written out in transparent words to us, the strangers of another age.
Page 47 - There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be to boil an egg. Manners are the happy way of doing things ; each, once a stroke of genius or of love, now repeated and hardened into usage. They form at last a rich varnish with which the routine of life is washed and its details adorned.
Page 75 - There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us.
Page 5 - CAN rules or tutors educate The semigod whom we await? He must be musical, Tremulous, impressional, Alive to gentle influence Of landscape and of sky, And tender to the spirit-touch Of man's or maiden's eye: But, to his native centre fast, Shall into Future fuse the Past, And the world's flowing fates in his own mould recast.
Page 13 - The three practical rules, then, which I have to offer, are — 1. Never read any book that is not a year old. 2. Never read any but famed books. 3. Never read any but what you like; or, in Shakspeare's phrase — No profit goes where is no pleasure ta'en: In brief, sir, study what you most affect.
Page 10 - ... is proper to him, and not waste his memory on a crowd of mediocrities. As whole nations have derived their culture from a single book, — as the Bible has been the literature as well as the religion of large portions of Europe; as...
Page 107 - This is that haughty force of beauty, " vis superba forma " which the poets praise, — under calm and precise outline, the immeasurable and divine: Beauty hiding all wisdom and power in its calm sky. All high beauty has a moral element in it, and I find the antique sculpture as ethical as Marcus Antoninus: and the beauty ever in proportion to the depth of thought.
Page 48 - The power of manners is incessant, — an element as unconcealable as fire. The nobility cannot in any country be disguised, and no more in a republic or a democracy, than in a kingdom. No man can resist their influence. There are certain manners which are learned in good society, of that force, that, if a person have them, he or she must be considered, and is everywhere welcome, though without beauty, or wealth, or genius.
Page 49 - There are certain manners which are learned in good society, of that force that if a person have them, he or she must be considered, and is everywhere welcome, though without beauty, or wealth, or genius. Give a boy address and accomplishments and you give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes where he goes. He has not the trouble of earning or owning them, they solicit him to enter and possess.
Page 44 - If Love, red Love, with tears and joy; if Want with his scourge; if War with his cannonade; if Christianity with its charity; if Trade with its money; if Art with its portfolios; if Science with her telegraphs through the deeps of space and time — can set his dull nerves throbbing, and, by loud taps on the tough chrysalis, can break its walls, and let the new creature emerge erect and free,— make way, and sing paean ! The age of the quadruped is to go out, — the age of the brain and of the...