The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: In Two Volumes, Volume 1J. R. Osgood and Company, 1875 |
From inside the book
Page 54
... is the functionary . The stream retreats to its source . A great soul will be strong to live , as well as strong to think . Does he lack organ or medium to in part his truths ? He can still fall back on this elemental force of living ...
... is the functionary . The stream retreats to its source . A great soul will be strong to live , as well as strong to think . Does he lack organ or medium to in part his truths ? He can still fall back on this elemental force of living ...
Common terms and phrases
action Ęschylus antinomianism appear astronomy beauty behold better character church conservatism conversation divine earth Emanuel Swedenborg Epaminondas eternal exist experience fact faculties faith fear feel force genius gifts give Goethe hand heart heaven Heraclitus hope hour human ical individual intel intellect labor light ligion live look man's manner marriage means mind moral Napoleon nature never noble objects Parliament of Love party pass perfect persons Phidias Pindar plant Plato Plotinus Plutarch poet poetry present prudence reform relations religion rich Rome scholar secret seems sense sentiment Shakespeare society Sophocles soul speak spirit stand stars sublime talent thee things thou thought tion to-day Transcendentalist true truth universal virtue whilst whole wisdom wise words Xenophon youth Zoroaster
Popular passages
Page 62 - A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.
Page 8 - Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear.
Page 243 - They do not seem to me to be such ; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this ; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it.
Page 32 - I was there ; when he set a compass upon the face of the depth ; when he established the clouds above ; when he strengthened the fountains of the deep ; when he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment ; when he appointed the foundations of the earth, then I was by him, as one brought up with him ; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him...
Page 59 - If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side and admit of being compared ; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope ; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era ? This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
Page 219 - T^HERE is one mind common to all individual men. Every JL man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought he may think ; what a saint has felt' he may feel ; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand.
Page 48 - Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will not fit this. Yet hence arises a grave mischief. The sacredness which attaches to the act of creation,— the act of thought, — is transferred to the record. The poet chanting, was felt to be a divine man: henceforth the chant is divine also.
Page 459 - CHARACTER The sun set; but set not his hope: Stars rose; his faith was earlier up: Fixed on the enormous galaxy, Deeper and older seemed his eye: And matched his sufferance sublime The taciturnity of time. He spoke, and words more soft than rain Brought the Age of Gold again: His action won such reverence sweet, As hid all measure of the feat.
Page 242 - ... 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 to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.
Page 8 - The charming landscape which I saw this morning is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is a property in the/ horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet.