The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Letters and social aimsHoughton Mifflin, 1917 |
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Æschylus Æsop appears astronomy beauty believe Ben Jonson better Boston called character conversation delight divine earth electric word eloquence Emerson England essay experience expression fact fancy feel Gawain genius give Goethe Hafiz hand heard heart heaven human Iliad imagination immortality inspiration intel intellect journal king laws learned lecture live look Madame de Staël manners matter mind moral muse Nachiketas nations Nature never once orator passage perception Persian persons philosophy Pindar Plato Plutarch poem poet poetry politics quote religion rhyme Saadi scholar sense sentence sentiment Shakspeare Simorg society song soul speak speech spirit Swedenborg talent thee things thou thought Timur tion true truth ture universal verse Viasa virtue voice Voltaire whilst whole William Blake wise words write Zoroaster
Popular passages
Page 48 - A little onward lend thy guiding hand To these dark steps, a little further on; For yonder bank hath choice of sun or shade; There I am wont to sit, when any chance Relieves me from my task of servile toil, Daily in the common prison else enjoin'd me, Where I, a prisoner chain'd, scarce freely draw The air imprison'd also, close and damp, Unwholesome draught.
Page 387 - The poet, in utter solitude remembering his spontaneous thoughts and recording them, is found to have recorded that which men in crowded cities find true for them also. The orator distrusts at first the fitness of his frank confessions — his want of knowledge of the persons he addresses — until he finds that he is the complement of his hearers; that they drink his words because he fulfils for them their own nature ; the deeper he dives into his privatest, secretest presentiment, to his wonder...
Page 47 - At her feet he bowed he fell, he lay down at her feet he bowed, he fell where he bowed, there he fell down dead...
Page 48 - Good, to whom all things ill Are but as slavish officers of vengeance, Would send a glistering guardian, if need were, To keep my life and honour unassail'd. Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night...
Page 282 - And now in age I bud again, After so many deaths I live and write; I once more smell the dew and rain, And relish versing: O my only light, It cannot be That I am he, On whom thy tempests fell all night.
Page 191 - If we are fired and guided by these, we know him as a benefactor, and shall return to him as long as he serves us so well. We may like well to know what is Plato's and what is Montesquieu's or Goethe's part, and what thought was always dear to the writer himself; but the worth of the sentences consists in their radiancy and equal aptitude to all intelligence. They fit all our facts like a charm. We respect ourselves the more that we know them. Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first...
Page 426 - By all means use sometimes to be alone. Salute thyself: see what thy soul doth wear. Dare to look in thy chest ; for 'tis thine own : And tumble up and down what thou find'st there.
Page 431 - in every hour, paid or unpaid, see only that thou work, and thou canst not escape the reward: whether thy work be fine or coarse, planting corn or writing epics, so only it be honest work, done to thine own approbation, it shall earn a reward to the senses as well as to the thought : no matter how often defeated, you are born to victory. The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.
Page 439 - Shall it survey, shall it recall : Each fainter trace that memory holds So darkly of departed years, In one broad glance the soul beholds, And all that was at once appears.
Page 338 - All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen. Whatever it be which the great Providence prepares for us, it must be something large and generous, and in the great style of his works.