Ralph Waldo EmersonHoughton Mifflin, 1915 - 379 pages Definitive look at the life and times of "the sage of Concord" traces the development of Emerson's often-controversial ideas and their expression, with criticisms of his early transcendentalist works, poetry, and later writings. |
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admirable affirm Alcott attitude beauty Boston Cabot called Carlyle character Charles Eliot Norton Concord criticism curious discourse divine Divinity School Address doctrine doubt effect Elizabeth Peabody Emer Emerson Emersonian England English Traits essay experience expression F. B. Sanborn fact faith feel Goethe half Harvard human ideas imagination impression inspiration instinct intellectual interest Jour Journals later lecture less letter literary literature mankind Margaret Fuller ment mind Montaigne moods moral nature ness Nominalist Over-Soul paragraphs passage peculiar perhaps person philosophy phrase plain Plato Poems poet poetry prose RALPH WALDO EMERSON rare reader religion religious seems Self-Reliance sense sentence Shakespeare sincerity social soul speak spirit Spiritual Laws style suggest temper Theodore Parker things Thoreau thought tion Transcendentalist truth ture Unitarian universe verse virtue volume Waldo whole William Emerson word write young
Popular passages
Page 237 - There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given him to till.
Page 235 - He had been wrested by no common deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice.
Page 235 - Events which short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained on his account. For his sake empires had risen, and flourished, and decayed. For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the Evangelist, and the harp of the prophet.
Page 266 - Woden, courage and constancy, in our Saxon breasts. This is to be done in our smooth times by speaking the truth. Check this lying hospitality and lying affection. Live no longer to the expectation of these deceived and deceiving people with whom we converse. Say to them, "O father, O mother, O wife, O brother, O friend, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward I am the truth's.
Page 267 - The ox must be taken from the plough and the horse from the cart, the hundred acres of the farm must be spaded, and the man must walk, wherever boats and locomotives will not carry him. Even the insect world was to be defended — that had been too long neglected, and a society for the protection of ground-worms, slugs and mosquitos was to be incorporated without delay.
Page 268 - Ineffable is the union of man and God in every act of the soul. The simplest person who in his integrity worships God, becomes God; yet for ever and ever the influx of this better and universal self is new and unsearchable.
Page 71 - Cambridge, some thirty years ago, was an event without any former parallel in our literary annals, a scene to be always treasured in the memory for its picturesqueness and its inspiration. What crowded and breathless aisles, what windows clustering with eager heads, what enthusiasm of approval, what grim silence of foregone dissent!
Page 69 - Saturnia regna, — so far was certain, though in what shape, or by what methods, was still a matter of debate. Every possible form of intellectual and physical dyspepsia brought forth its gospel. Bran had its prophets, and the presartorial simplicity of Adam its martyrs, tailored impromptu from the tar-pot by incensed neighbors, and sent forth to illustrate the " feathered Mercury," as defined by Webster and Worcester.
Page 167 - What is this Truth you seek ? what is this Beauty! " men will ask, with derision. If, nevertheless, God have called any of you to explore truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true ! When you shall say, " As others do, so will I; I renounce, I am sorry for it, my early visions; I must eat the good of the land and let learning and romantic expectation go until a more convenient season...
Page 266 - I grudge the dollar, die dime, the cent I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought and sold; for them I will go...