Emerson's Theories of Literary Expressions

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University of Illinois, 1923 - 152 pages
 

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Page 83 - 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 87 - But lest I should mislead any when I have my own head and obey my whims, let me remind the reader that I am only an experimenter. Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle anything as true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no Past at my back.
Page 63 - I ask not for the great, the remote, the romantic; what is doing in Italy or Arabia; what is Greek art, or Provengal minstrelsy; I embrace the common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low.
Page 5 - Every word which is used to express a moral or intellectual fact, if traced to its root, is found to be borrowed from some material appearance.
Page 50 - Not so with our recent actions — with the business which we now have in hand. On this we are quite unable to speculate. Our affections as yet circulate through it. We no more feel or know it than we feel the feet, or the hand, or the brain of our body. The new deed is yet a part of life — remains for a time immersed in our unconscious life. In some contemplative hour it detaches itself from the life like a ripe fruit to become a thought of the mind.
Page 5 - There seems to be a necessity in spirit to manifest itself in material forms ; and day and night, river and storm, beast and bird, acid and alkali, preexist in necessary Ideas in the mind of God, and are what they are by virtue of preceding affections in the world of spirit. A Fact is the end or last issue of spirit. The visible creadon is the terminus or the circumference of the invisible world.
Page 73 - Dont waste your time at family funerals grieving for your relatives: attend to life, not to death: there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, and better.
Page 48 - Life is our dictionary. Years are well spent in country labors; in town, — in the insight into trades and manufactures; in frank intercourse with many men and women; in science; in art; to the one end of mastering in all their facts a language by which to illustrate and embody our perceptions.
Page 39 - The circumcision is an example of the power of poetry to raise the low and offensive. Small and mean things serve as well as great symbols. The meaner the type by which a law is expressed, the more pungent it is, and the more lasting in the memories of men : just as we choose the smallest box, or case, in which any needful utensil can be carried.
Page 105 - These varieties are lost sight of at a little distance, at a little height of thought. One tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency.

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