The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Letters and social aimsHoughton Mifflin, 1904 |
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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 Nachiketas nations Nature never once orator passage perception Persian persons philosophy Pindar Plato Plutarch poem poet poetry politics quote RALPH WALDO EMERSON religion rhyme Saadi scholar secret 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 280 - 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 47 - Of old hast THOU laid the foundation of the earth : And the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but THOU shalt endure : Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment ; As a vesture shalt THOU change them, and they shall be changed : But THOU art the same, And thy years shall have no end.
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 319 - Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know What rainbows teach, and sunsets show? Verdict which accumulates From lengthening scroll of human fates, Voice of earth to earth returned, Prayers of saints that inly burned,— Saying, What is excellent, As God lives, is permanent; Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain; Heart's love will meet thee again.
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 189 - 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 424 - 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 110 - ... true eloquence I find to be none, but the serious and hearty love of truth: and that whose mind soever is fully possessed with a fervent desire to know good things, and with the dearest charity to infuse the knowledge of them into others, when such a man would speak, his words, like so many nimble and airy servitors, trip about him at command, and in well-ordered files, as he would wish, fall aptly into their own places.
Page 325 - As may express them best ; though what if earth Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein Each to other like, more than on earth is thought...
Page 385 - 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 privates!, secretest presentiment, to his wonder he...