Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume 1Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1876 - American essays |
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Page 15
... nations . Who cares what the fact was , when we have made a constellation of it to hang in heaven an immortal sign ? London and Paris and New York must go the same way . " What is His- tory , " said Napoleon , “ but a fable HISTORY . 15.
... nations . Who cares what the fact was , when we have made a constellation of it to hang in heaven an immortal sign ? London and Paris and New York must go the same way . " What is His- tory , " said Napoleon , “ but a fable HISTORY . 15.
Page 33
... heaven - facing speakers . Ah ! brother , stop the ebb of thy soul , - ebbing downward into the forms into whose habits thou hast now for many years slid . As near and proper to us is also that old fable of the Sphinx , who was said to ...
... heaven - facing speakers . Ah ! brother , stop the ebb of thy soul , - ebbing downward into the forms into whose habits thou hast now for many years slid . As near and proper to us is also that old fable of the Sphinx , who was said to ...
Page 38
... heaven and earth . Is there somewhat overweening in this claim ? Then I reject all I have written , for what is the use of pretend- ing to know what we know not ? But it is the fault of our rhetoric that we cannot strongly state one ...
... heaven and earth . Is there somewhat overweening in this claim ? Then I reject all I have written , for what is the use of pretend- ing to know what we know not ? But it is the fault of our rhetoric that we cannot strongly state one ...
Page 69
... heaven seem to them hung on the arch their master built . They cannot imagine how you aliens have any right to see , how you can see ; it must be somehow They do not yet per- - that you stole the light from us . ' ceive , that light ...
... heaven seem to them hung on the arch their master built . They cannot imagine how you aliens have any right to see , how you can see ; it must be somehow They do not yet per- - that you stole the light from us . ' ceive , that light ...
Page 104
... head , by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener is made the banian of the forest , yielding shade and fruit to wide neighbor- hoods of men . SPIRITUAL LAWS . THE living Heaven thy prayers respect , 104 COMPENSATION .
... head , by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener is made the banian of the forest , yielding shade and fruit to wide neighbor- hoods of men . SPIRITUAL LAWS . THE living Heaven thy prayers respect , 104 COMPENSATION .
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action Æsop animal appear beauty begin to hope behold better black event Bonduca Cæsar Calvinistic character chivalry church conversation divine earth Epaminondas eternal experience expression fact fancy feel flower force friendship genius gifts give hand heart heaven Heraclitus hour human individual intellect less light live look man's manner marriage ment mind moral Napoleon nature never object ourselves painted Parliament of Love party pass perfect persons Plato Plotinus Plutarch poet poetry present Proclus prudence Pythagoras RALPH WALDO EMERSON relations religion rich sculpture secret seems sense sentiment Shakspeare society Sophocles soul speak spirit stand stars sweet symbol talent thee things thou thought tion to-day true truth universal virtue whilst whole wisdom wise wonderful words Xenophon youth Zoroaster
Popular passages
Page 47 - What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within?" my friend suggested, — "But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child. I will live then from the Devil.
Page 282 - Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.
Page 215 - Meantime within man is the soul of the whole ; the wise silence ; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist, and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object are one.
Page 19 - So every spirit, as it is most pure, And hath in it the more of heavenly light, So it the fairer body doth procure To habit in, and it more fairly dight, With cheerful grace and amiable sight. For, of the soul, the body form doth take, For soul is form, and doth the body make.
Page 269 - God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please, — you can never have both. Between these, as a pendulum, man oscillates. He in whom the love of repose predominates will accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the first political party he meets, — most likely his father's. He gets test, commodity, and reputation ; but he shuts the door of truth.
Page 50 - If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for the government or against it, spread your table like base housekeepers, — under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are. And, of course, so much force is withdrawn from your proper life. But do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself.
Page 97 - Even so doth God protect us if we be Virtuous and wise. Winds blow, and waters roll, Strength to the brave, and power, and deity, Yet in themselves are nothing...
Page 37 - Banks and tariffs, the newspaper and caucus, Methodism and Unitarianism, are flat and dull to dull people, but rest on the same foundations of wonder as the town of Troy, and the temple of Delphos, and are as swiftly passing away.
Page 49 - What I must do, is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.
Page 241 - But the heart refuses to be imprisoned ; in its first and narrowest pulses it already tends outward with a vast force and to immense and innumerable expansions.