The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: The conduct of life

Front Cover
Houghton, Mifflin, 1859
 

Contents

I
1
II
51
III
83
IV
129
V
167
VI
199
VII
243
VIII
279
IX
307

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Page 402 - But who, if he be called upon to face Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined Great issues, good or bad for human kind, Is happy as a Lover ; and attired With sudden brightness, like a Man inspired...
Page 405 - Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. 5 Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.
Page 398 - We -lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams.
Page 394 - Man is his own star; and the soul that can Render an honest and a perfect man, Commands all light, all influence, all fate; Nothing to him falls early or too late. Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.
Page 241 - 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 31 - The divine order does not stop where their sight stops. The friendly power works on the same rules, in the next farm, and the next planet.
Page 423 - Ruby wine is drunk by knaves, Sugar spends to fatten slaves, Rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons; Thunder-clouds are Jove's festoons, Drooping oft in wreaths of dread, Lightning-knotted round his head; The hero is not fed on sweets, Daily his own heart he eats; Chambers of the great are jails, And head-winds right for royal sails.
Page 406 - O friend, my bosom said, Through thee alone the sky is arched, Through thee the rose is red, All things through thee take nobler form, And look beyond the earth, The mill-round of our fate appears A sun-path in thy worth. Me too thy nobleness has taught To master my despair; The fountains of my hidden life Are through thy friendship fair.
Page 327 - I hearing get, who had but ears, And sight, who had but eyes before; I moments live, who lived but years, And truth discern, who knew but learning's lore.
Page 74 - The one prudence in life is concentration ; the one ,evil is dissipation : and it makes no difference whether our dissipations are coarse or fine ; property and its cares, friends, and a social habit, or politics, or music, or feasting. Everything is good which takes away one plaything and delusion more, and drives us home to add one stroke of faithful work.

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