Ralph Waldo Emerson, Man and TeacherWilliam Brown, 1884 - 44 pages |
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action assertion beauty become believes brave Carlyle character characteristic Christ Cicero conduct crass defect Deity desires divine doctrine of self-reliance doubtless duty effect Egypt Emerson's ethic emotion emphasize equally evermore evil existence faith father force genius Goethe grace Greece heart hero-worship heroes heroism highest historical Christianity human ideal idolatry immortal individual inner laws inquire for little inspiration intellectual Jesus keen least less light live lofty material matter mind modern moral sentiment nature noble obeyed organ ourselves Over-soul Pantheism person philosophy phosphorus physical political practice prayer private ends pronounced proof prophet Puritan purity Quaker RALPH WALDO EMERSON recognised relations religion renunciation represent scorn seek the Grail seems self-denial sense Shakespeare shine soul soul's speak specula Spinoza spiritual evolution spiritual facts spiritualist sympathy theosophy things Thomas Carlyle thought Threnody tion true trust truth unity universal vice virtue voice wisdom wise worship
Popular passages
Page 15 - 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. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one.
Page 18 - There is no doctrine of the Reason which will bear to be taught by the Understanding. The understanding caught this high chant from the poet's lips, and said, in the next age, 'This was Jehovah come down out of heaven. I will kill you if you say he was a man.
Page 34 - A man is like a bit of Labrador spar, which has no lustre as you turn it in your hand until you come to a particular angle; then it shows deep and beautiful colors.
Page 18 - Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it and had his being there. Alone in all history he estimated the greatness of man.
Page 15 - The Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present, and the only prophet of that which must be, is that great nature in which we rest, as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere...
Page 14 - All goes to show that the soul in man is not an organ, but animates and exercises all the organs; is not a function, like the power of memory, of calculation, of comparison, but uses these as hands and feet; is not a faculty, but a light; is not the intellect or the will, but the master of the intellect and the will; is the background of our being, in which they lie, - an immensity not possessed and that cannot be possessed.
Page 18 - He spoke of miracles; for he felt that man's life was a miracle, and all that man doth, and he knew that this daily miracle shines as the character ascends. But the word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is Monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain.
Page 21 - Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view.
Page 15 - A man is the facade of a temple wherein all wisdom and all good abide. What we commonly call man, the eating, drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect, but the soul, whose organ he is, would he let it appear through his action, would make our knees bend.
Page 25 - 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. The future must be up to the style of our faculties, — of memory, of hope, of imagination, of reason.