The American Scholar |
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... and his great admiration for real men . They also indicate his keen critical insight into social causes , as well as his fearless regard for the truth . He did not write to flatter , nor to make the worse appear the better.
... and his great admiration for real men . They also indicate his keen critical insight into social causes , as well as his fearless regard for the truth . He did not write to flatter , nor to make the worse appear the better.
Page 8
... write , legislate , and live not for the interest of mankind , but only for a class ; instead of eminent wisdom , justice , piety , they have eminent cunning , selfishness and want of faith . These charges are matters of allegation ...
... write , legislate , and live not for the interest of mankind , but only for a class ; instead of eminent wisdom , justice , piety , they have eminent cunning , selfishness and want of faith . These charges are matters of allegation ...
Page 12
... writes , most un- couthly , in the language only of the schools ; and if not kept in awe by the government , they are contented that a thought should remain always a thought ; while in their own heart they disdain all authority but that ...
... writes , most un- couthly , in the language only of the schools ; and if not kept in awe by the government , they are contented that a thought should remain always a thought ; while in their own heart they disdain all authority but that ...
Page 16
... write as ill as Immanuel Kant ; there is not a large class to buy costly editions of ancient classics , however beau- tiful , or magnificent works on India , Egypt , Mexico — the class of scholars is too poor for that , the rich men ...
... write as ill as Immanuel Kant ; there is not a large class to buy costly editions of ancient classics , however beau- tiful , or magnificent works on India , Egypt , Mexico — the class of scholars is too poor for that , the rich men ...
Page 17
... writing was for the few . The best English literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is amenable to the same criticism , except the dramatic and the religious . It is so with all the permanent litera- ture of ...
... writing was for the few . The best English literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is amenable to the same criticism , except the dramatic and the religious . It is so with all the permanent litera- ture of ...
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Common terms and phrases
abolitionists America appears beauty better Boston cause century Channing character Christian church civilization Cortés culture divine doctrines doughfaces Emerson eminent England English Europe fact Ferdinand and Isabella Follen freedom genius German German literature give Goethe heart Hebrew Hegel Henry Ward Beecher historian honor human idea Indians institutions intellectual Isabella justice king labor land learned less literary literature live look Lord mankind Massachusetts matter ment Mexicans Mexico mind minister moral nation nature never noble Parker persons philosophy political preach Prescott progress pulpit Puritans race Ralph Waldo Emerson religion religious rich says scholar seems sermons servants slavery slaves soul Spain Spaniards speak speech spirit theology things thought thousand Thucydides tion true truth ture volume wealth whole WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING Wolfgang Menzel word write
Popular passages
Page 159 - I am in earnest. I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch. AND I WILL BE HEARD.
Page 71 - Standing on the bare ground — my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.
Page 92 - Out from the heart of nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old ; The litanies of nations came, Like the volcano's tongue of flame, Up from the burning core below, — The canticles of love and woe...
Page 94 - Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit.
Page 414 - Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild ; Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled, And still his...
Page 86 - Kingdom and lordship, power and estate, are a gaudier vocabulary than private John and Edward in a small house and common day's work; but the things of life are the same to both; the sum total of both is the same. Why all this deference to Alfred and Scanderbeg and Gustavus? Suppose they were virtuous; did they wear out virtue? As great a stake depends on your private act to-day as followed their public and renowned steps.
Page 77 - The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?
Page 85 - Every heroic act is also decent, and causes the place and the bystanders to shine. We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it. Every rational creature has all nature for his dowry and estate. It is his, if he will. He may divest himself of it; he may creep into a corner, and abdicate his kingdom, as most men do, but he is entitled to the world by his constitution. In proportion to the energy of his thought and will, he takes up the world into himself....
Page 71 - In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods is perpetual youth.
Page 71 - To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars.