Emerson's complete works [ed. by J.E. Cabot]. Riverside ed, Volume 2 |
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Page 35
... 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 sit in the road - side and put riddles to every passenger . If the man could not answer , she swallowed him alive . If ...
... 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 sit in the road - side and put riddles to every passenger . If the man could not answer , she swallowed him alive . If ...
Page 53
... thou foolish philan- thropist that I grudge the dollar , the 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 ...
... thou foolish philan- thropist that I grudge the dollar , the 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 ...
Page 58
... thou- sand - eyed present , and live ever in a new day . In your metaphysics you have denied personality to the Deity , yet when the devout motions of the soul come , yield to them heart and life , though they should clothe God with ...
... thou- sand - eyed present , and live ever in a new day . In your metaphysics you have denied personality to the Deity , yet when the devout motions of the soul come , yield to them heart and life , though they should clothe God with ...
Page 78
... thou , speak any man with us , and we will obey . ' Everywhere I am hin- dered of meeting God in my brother , because he has shut his own temple doors and recites fables mere- ly of his brother's , or his brother's brother's God . Every ...
... thou , speak any man with us , and we will obey . ' Everywhere I am hin- dered of meeting God in my brother , because he has shut his own temple doors and recites fables mere- ly of his brother's , or his brother's brother's God . Every ...
Page 82
... thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld again . 4. As our Religion , our Education , our Art look abroad , so does our spirit of society . All men plume themselves on the improvement of society , and no man improves . Society never advances ...
... thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld again . 4. As our Religion , our Education , our Art look abroad , so does our spirit of society . All men plume themselves on the improvement of society , and no man improves . Society never advances ...
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Popular passages
Page 318 - ... event, so that all the laws of nature may be read in the smallest fact. The intellect must have the like perfection in its apprehension and in its works. For this reason, an index or mercury of intellectual proficiency is the perception of identity. We talk with accomplished persons who appear to be strangers in nature. The cloud, the tree, the turf, the bird are not theirs, have nothing of them : the world is only their lodging and table. But the poet, whose verses are to be spheral and complete,...
Page 83 - What a contrast between the well-clad, reading, writing, thinking American, with a watch, a pencil and a bill of exchange in his pocket, and the naked New Zealander, whose property is a club, a spear, a mat and an undivided twentieth of a shed to sleep under ! But compare the health of the two men and you shall see that the white man has lost his aboriginal strength.
Page 67 - I am,' but quotes some saint or sage. lie is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones ; they are for what they are ; they exist with God to-day.
Page 281 - THE eye is the first circle ; the horizon which it forms is the second ; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world.
Page 66 - The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure that it is profane to seek to interpose helps. It must be that when God speaketh he should communicate, not one thing, but all things; should fill the world with his voice; should scatter forth light, nature, time, souls, from the centre of the present thought; and new date and new create the whole.
Page 82 - It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For everything that is given something is taken.
Page 55 - The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character.
Page 106 - All things are double, one against another. — Tit for tat ; an eye for an eye ; a tooth for a tooth ; blood for blood ; measure for measure ; love for love. — Give, and it shall be given you. — He that watereth shall be watered himself. — "What will you have ? quoth God ; pay for it and take it.
Page 48 - 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. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on .him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preestablishcd harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.
Page 203 - ... no consuetudes or habits of society, would be of any avail to establish us in such relations with them as we desire, —but solely the uprise of nature in us to the same degree it is in them; then shall we meet as water with water; and if we should not meet them then, we shall not want them, for we are already they. In the last analysis, love is only the reflection of a man's own worthiness from other men.