Ralph Waldo Emerson: His Life, Writings, and PhilosophyJ.R. Osgood, 1881 - 390 pages |
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absolute accept admiration Alcott American appeared beauty believe Boston called Carlyle Channing character Christianity church Concord Concord Lyceum criticism Dial divine doctrine Elizabeth Peabody Emerson England Essays eternal evil existence expression eyes fact faith feeling Fraser's Magazine Frederika Bremer friends gave genius George Ripley give Goethe heart human Ibid ideas individual influence inspiration intellect interest intuition lectures letter literary literature living manner Margaret Fuller method mind moral sentiment mystic nature never North American Review obedience obey opinion Over-soul pantheist Parker perfect persons philosophy Plato Plotinus poems poet poetry prayer preacher preaching pulpit pure reform regard religion religious Ripley says Schelling sense sermon Shakspere slavery society soul speak sympathy teach Theodore Parker things thinkers Thoreau thought tion Transcendental Club true trust truth Unitarian unity Universal Spirit virtue voice Waldo William Law words writings
Popular passages
Page 247 - Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing. Then Beauty is its own excuse for being: Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
Page 233 - I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of Leaves of Grass. I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed.
Page 28 - For what is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose or forfeit his own self...
Page 25 - O, when I am safe in my sylvan home, I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome; And when I am stretched beneath the pines, Where the evening star so holy shines, I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, At the sophist schools and the learned clan ; For what are they all, in their high conceit, When man in the bush with God may meet?
Page 368 - ... centre of the present thought; and new date and new create the whole. Whenever a mind is simple and receives a divine wisdom, old things pass away, -means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now. and absorbs past and future into the present hour.
Page 379 - As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action. The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar. are true prayers heard throughout nature, though for cheap ends. Caratach, in Fletcher's Bonduca. when admonished to inquire the mind of the god Audate, replies. "His hidden meaning lies in our endeavors; Our valors are our best gods.
Page 381 - There will be a new church founded on moral science; at first cold and naked, a babe in a manger again, the algebra and mathematics of ethical law, the church of men to come, without shawms, or psaltery, or sackbut; but it will have heaven and earth for its beams and rafters; science for symbol and illustration ; it will fast enough gather beauty, music, picture, poetry.
Page 40 - A subtle chain of countless rings The next unto the farthest brings, The eye reads omens where it goes, And speaks all languages the rose; And, striving to be man, the worm Mounts through all the spires of form.
Page 325 - Everywhere the history of religion betrays a tendency to enthusiasm, The rapture of the Moravian and Quietist ; the opening of the internal sense of the Word, in the language of the New Jerusalem Church ; the revival of the Calvinistic Churches ; the experiences of the Methodists, — are varying forms of that shudder of awe and delight with which the individual soul always mingles with the universal soul.
Page 286 - There is a deeper fact in the soul than compensation, to wit, its own nature. The soul is not a compensation, but a life. The soul is. Under all this running sea of circumstance, whose waters ebb and flow with perfect balance, lies the aboriginal abyss of real Being. Essence, or God, is not a relation or a part, but the whole. Being is the vast affirmative, excluding negation, self-balanced, and swallowing up all relations, parts and times within itself.