Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures. Book Two (7),


1803 -1882. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. 1983.

Why read it? Emerson’s unit of thought is the epigrammatic sentence. Emerson writes a poetic prose. Emerson’s beliefs—that each man shares in the Over-Soul, or God, that man possesses, within himself, the means to all knowledge—expressed in his memorable sentences, are of central importance in the history of American culture. The only trouble is most of his ideas are half-truths.

Ideas:
“Talent alone can not make a writer.” P. 756. ………. “I join Napoleon with Goethe as being both representatives of the impatience and reaction of nature against the morgue of conventions…..” P. 761. ………. “It is the last lesson of modern science, that the highest simplicity of structure is produced, not by few elements, but by the highest complexity.” ………. “Man is the most composite of all creatures….” P. 761. ……... “…the disadvantages of any epoch exist only to the faint-hearted.” P. 761. ……….. “The secret of genius is…to realize all that we know.” P. 761. ………. “…to honor every truth by use.” P. 761. ………. “Gibbon was said by Carlyle to be the splendid bridge from the old world to the new.” P. 774. ………. Wordsworth: “Faith is necessary…to reconcile the foreknowledge of God with human evil.” P. 776. ………. “Classics which at home are drowsily read have a strange charm in a country inn, or on…a merchant brig.” P. 782. ………. “…we exchanged our experiences and all learned something.” P. 782. ………. “This light they [the English] derive from the liberty of speaking and writing, and thereby thinking.” P. 289. ………. “An ingenious anatomist has written a book to prove that races are imperishable, but nations are pliant political constructions, easily changed or destroyed.” P. 790.

To be continued.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures. Book Two (6).


1803 -1882. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. 1983.

Why read it? Emerson’s unit of thought is the epigrammatic sentence. Emerson writes a poetic prose. Emerson’s beliefs—that each man shares in the Over-Soul, or God, that man possesses, within himself, the means to all knowledge—expressed in his memorable sentences, are of central importance in the history of American culture. The only trouble is most of his ideas are half-truths.

Ideas:
“Yet there is not a trace of egotism [in Shakespeare’s plays].” P. 724. ………. “…his cheerfulness, without which no man can be a poet—for beauty is his aim.” P. 724. ………. “…if Napoleon is Europe, it is because the people whom he sways are little Napoleons.” P. 727. ………. “Bonaparte was the idol of common men, because he had in transcendent degree the qualities and powers of common men.” P. 729. ………. “An Italian proverb , too well known, declares that, ‘if you would succeed, you must not be too good.’ ” P. 729. ………. “History is full, down to this day, of the imbecility of kings and governors.” P. 732. ………. “In describing the two parties into which modern society divides itself—the democrat and the conservative—I said Bonaparte represents the Democrat, or the party of men of business, against the stationary or Conservative party.”  P. 744. ………. “Here [with Napoleon] was an experiment, under the most favorable conditions, of the powers of intellect without conscience.” P. 744. ………. Goethe: “I have never heard of any crime which I might not have committed.” P. 754.

To be continued,

Monday, June 28, 2010

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures. Book Two (5)


1803 -1882. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. 1983.

Why read it? Emerson’s unit of thought is the epigrammatic sentence. Emerson writes a poetic prose. Emerson’s beliefs—that each man shares in the Over-Soul, or God, that man possesses, within himself, the means to all knowledge—expressed in his memorable sentences, are of central importance in the history of American culture. The only trouble is most of his ideas are half-truths.

Ideas:
“…I see plainly…that I cannot see.” P. 693. ………. “…human strength is not in extremes, but in avoiding extremes.” P. 693. ……….. “The essays [Montaigne’s], therefore, are an entertaining soliloquy on every random topic that comes into his head.” P. 700. ………. “It is the language of conversation transferred to a book.” P. 700. ……….. “The superior mind will find itself equally at odds with the evils of society, and with the ;projects that are offered to relieve them.” P. 702. ………. “Knowledge is the knowing that we can’t know.” P. 703. ………. “The word fate or destiny, expresses the sense of mankind, in all ages—that the laws of the world do not always befriend, but often hurt or crush us.” P. 704. ………. “Great believers are always reckoned infidels, impracticable, fantastic, atheists, and really men of no account.” P. 707. ………. “Great men are more distinguished by range and extent than by originality.” P. 710. ………. “The greatest genius is the most indebted man” [referring to Shakespeare’s borrowing from his sources]. P. 710. ………. “He[Chaucer] steals by this apology [that] what he takes has no worth where he finds it, and the greatest where he leaves it.” P. 714. ………. “Thus, all originality is relative.” P. 715. ………. “Shakespeare is the only biographer of Shakespeare; and even he can tell nothing, except to the Shakespeare in us.” P. 720.

To be continued.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures. Book Two (4).


1803 -1882. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. 1983.

Why read it? Emerson’s unit of thought is the epigrammatic sentence. Emerson writes a poetic prose. Emerson’s beliefs—that each man shares in the Over-Soul, or God, that man possesses, within himself, the means to all knowledge—expressed in his memorable sentences, are of central importance in the history of American culture. The only trouble is most of his ideas are half-truths.

Ideas:
“Such a boy [Swedenborg] .. goes grubbing into mines and mountains, prying into chemistry and optics, physiology, mathematics, and astronomy to find images….” P. 664. ………. “Swedenborg was born into an atmosphere of great ideas.” P. 667. ………. “…one would swear that the physical world was purely symbolical of the spiritual world….” P. 673. ………. Swedenborg: “…in heaven the angels are advancing continually to the spring-time of their youth, so that the oldest angel appears the youngest.” P. 678. ………. “It is hard to carry a full cup….” P. 681. ………. “These books should be used with caution.” P. 682. ………. “It [reading Swedenborg’s books]requires for his just apprehension [comprehension] almost a genius equal to his own.” P. 682. ………. “He builds his fortune, maintains the laws, cherishes his children, but he asks himself, why? And whereto?” p. 690. ………. “The genius…beholds the design….” P. 691. ………. :In England, the richest country that ever existed property stands for more, compared with personal ability, than in any other.” P. 691. ………. “ ‘Ah,’ said my languid gentleman of Oxford, ‘There’s nothing new or true—and no matter.’ ” P. 692. ………. “With a little more bitterness, the cynic moans: our life is like an ass led to market by a bundle of hay being carried before him: he sees nothing but the bundle of hay.” P. 692. ………. “ ‘There is so much trouble coming into the world,’ said Lord Bolingbroke, ‘and so much more, as well as meanness, in going out of it, that ‘tis hardly worthwhile to be here at all.’” P. 693.

To be continued.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures. Book Two (3).


1803 -1882. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. 1983.

Why read it? Emerson’s unit of thought is the epigrammatic sentence. Emerson writes a poetic prose. Emerson’s beliefs—that each man shares in the Over-Soul, or God, that man possesses, within himself, the means to all knowledge—expressed in his memorable sentences, are of central importance in the history of American culture. The only trouble is most of his ideas are half-truths.

Ideas:
“…Omar’s fanatical compliment to the Koran.. ‘Burn the libraries, for their value is in this book.’ ” P. 633. ………. “Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated among men of thought.” P. 633. ……….. “Great geniuses have the shortest biographies…lived in their writings and so their house and street life was trivial and commonplace” p. 635. ………. “The mind is urged to ask for one cause of many  effects, then for the cause of that; and again the cause, diving still into the profound: self-assured that it shall arrive at an absolute and sufficient one—one that shall be all.” P. 638. ………. “Meantime, Plato, in Egypt and in eastern pilgrimages, imbibed the idea of one deity, in which all things are absorbed.” P. 640. ………. “Every great artist has been such by synthesis.” P. 641. ………. “He[Plato] is a great average man…so that men see in him their own dreams….” P. 644. ………. Plato: “The essence of man…is to comprehend a whole; or that which, in the diversity of sensations, can be comprised under a rational unity.” P. 645. ………. “…the love of the sexes is initial; and symbolizes, at a distance, the passion of the soul for that immense lake of beauty it exists to seek.” P. 649. ………. “[Plato’s] sense deepens, his merits multiply, with study.” P. 654.

To be continued.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures. Book Two (2).


1803 -1882. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. 1983.

Why read it? Emerson’s unit of thought is the epigrammatic sentence. Emerson writes a poetic prose. Emerson’s beliefs—that each man shares in the Over-Soul, or God, that man possesses, within himself, the means to all knowledge—expressed in his memorable sentences, are of central importance in the history of American culture. The only trouble is most of his ideas are half-truths.

Ideas:
“Men do not believe in the power of education.” P. 599. ………. “…the scholar was not raised by the sacred thoughts amongst which he dwelt, but used them to selfish ends.” P. 600. ………. “Knowledge gave the scholar certain powers of expression, the power of speech, the power of poetry, of literary art, but it did not bring him to peace or to beneficence.” P. 601. ………. “…that is ever the difference between the wise and the unwise: the latter wonders at what is unusual, the wise man wonders at the usual.” P. 609. ………. “I cannot tell what I would know; but I have observed there are persons who in their character and actions, answer questions which I have not skill to put.” ………. “Great men…clear our eyes from egotism, and enable us to see other people and their works.” P. 626. ………. “…all are teachers and pupils in turn.” P. 629. ………. “The heroes of the hour are relatively great ... or they are such, in whom, at the moment of success, a quality is ripe which is then in request.” P. 630. ………. “…great men exist that there may be greater men.” P. 632.

To be continued.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures, Book Two (1)


1803 -1882. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. 1983.

Why read it? Emerson’s unit of thought is the epigrammatic sentence. Emerson writes a poetic prose. Emerson’s beliefs—that each man shares in the Over-Soul, or God, that man possesses, within himself, the means to all knowledge—expressed in his memorable sentences, are of central importance in the history of American culture. The only trouble is most of his ideas are half-truths.

Ideas:
“The law is only a memorandum.” P. 559. ………. “…the form and method of governing, which are proper to each nation, and to its habit of thought, and nowise transferable to other states of society.” P. 566. ………. “Each of the speakers expresses himself imperfectly: No one of them hears much that another says, such is the preoccupation of mind of each….” P. 575. ………. “But there are no such men as we fable, no Jesus, nor Pericles, nor Caesar, nor Michael Angelo, nor Washington such as we have made.” P. 576. ………. “The end and the means, the gamester and the game—life is made up of the intermixture and reaction of these two amicable powers, whose marriage appears beforehand monstrous, as each denies and tends to abolish the other.” P. 585. ………. “It was complained…we are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.” P. 594. ………. Greek and Latin: “…studies which lead to nothing….” P. 595. ………. “The criticism and attack on institutions which we have witnessed, has made one thing plain, that society gains nothing whilst a man, not himself renovated, attempts to renovate things around him: he has become tediously good in some particular, but negligent or narrow in the rest; hypocrisy and vanity are often the disgusting result.” P. 596.

To be continued.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures. Book One (6).


1803 -1882. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. 1983.

Why read it? Emerson’s unit of thought is the epigrammatic sentence. Emerson writes a poetic prose. Emerson’s beliefs—that each man shares in the Over-Soul, or God, that man possesses, within himself, the means to all knowledge—expressed in his memorable sentences, are of central importance in the history of American culture. The only trouble is most of his ideas are half-truths.

Ideas:
“…the beauty of things, which becomes a new, and higher beauty when expressed.” P. 452. ………. “But the quality of the imagination is to flow, and not to freeze.” P. 463 ……….. “In times when we thought ourselves indolent, we have afterwards discovered, that much was accomplished and much was begun in us.” P. 471. ………. “Life is a train of moods…and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus.” P. 473. ………. “Nature, as we know her, is no saint.” P. 481. ………. “…and the true romance…will be the transformation of genius into practical power.” P. 492. ………. “…such men are often solitary, or if they chance to be social, do not need society, but can entertain themselves very well alone.” P. 495. ………. “…and if the people should destroy class after class, until two men only were left, one of these would be the leader, and would be involuntarily served and copied by the other.” P. 518. ………. “He is a good man who can receive a gift well.” ………. “There are days which occur in this climate, at almost any season of the year, wherein the world reaches its perfection…when everything that has life gives sign of satisfaction, and the cattle that lie on the ground seem to have great and tranquil thoughts.” P. 541. ………. “All promise outruns the performance.” P. 552. ………. “Every end is prospective of some other end, which is also temporary; a round and final success nowhere.” P. 552.

End of Book One.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures. Book One (5).


1803 -1882. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. 1983.

Why read it? Emerson’s unit of thought is the epigrammatic sentences. Emerson writes a poetic prose. Emerson’s beliefs—that each man shares in the Over-Soul, or God, that man possesses, within himself, the means to all knowledge—expressed in his memorable sentences, are of central importance in the history of American culture. The only trouble is most of his ideas are half-truths.

Ideas:
“There are degrees in idealism.” p. 407. ……….. “Conversation is a game of circles.” p. 408. ………. “We can never see Christianity from the Catechism—from the pastures, from a boat in the pond, from amidst the songs of wood-birds, we possibly may.” p. 409. ………. “One man’s justice is another man’s injustice; one man’s beauty, another’s ugliness; one man’s wisdom, another’s folly….” p. 410. ……….”Thus there is no sleep, no pause, no preservation, but all things renew, germinate, and spring.” p. 412. ………. “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” p. 414. ………. “Life is a series of surprises.” p. 413. ………. Oliver Cromwell: “A man never rises so high as when he knows not where he is going.” p. 414. ………. “….the wisest doctor is graveled [confused, perplexed] by the inquisitiveness of a child.” p. 417. ………. “You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud and fruit.” p. 419. ………. “God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose.” p. 425. ………. “Thus, historically viewed, it as been the office of art to educate the perception of beauty.” p. 432.

To be continued.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures. Book One (4).


1803 -1882. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. 1983.

Why read it? Emerson’s unit of thought is the epigrammatic sentence. Emerson writes a poetic prose. Emerson’s beliefs—that each man shares in the Over-Soul, or God, that man possesses, within himself, the means to all knowledge—expressed in his memorable sentences, are of central importance in the history of American culture. The only trouble is most of his ideas are half-truths.

Ideas:
“He that writes to himself writes to an eternal public.” p. 316. ………. “That statement only is fit to be made public, which you have come at in attempting to satisfy your own curiosity.” p. 316. ………. “The lesson which these observations convey is, Be and not seem.” p. 320. ………. “I do then with my friends as I do with my books: I would have them where I can find them but I seldom use them.” p. 353. ……….. “So in regard to disagreeable and formidable things, prudence does not consist in evasion, or in flight, but in courage.” p. 365. ………. “Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live.” p. 367. ………. “The hero is not fed on sweets./ Daily his own heart he eats.” p. 369. ………. “The characteristic of heroism is its persistency.” p. 379. ………. “Some thoughts always find us young, and keep us so.” p. 388. ………. “The faith that stands on authority is not faith.” p. 399. ………. “…every action admits of being outdone.” p. 403. ………. “…there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning.” p. 403. ………. “The life of a man is a self-evolving circle, which, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides outwards to new and  larger circles and that without end.” p. 404. ………. “Every ultimate fact is only the first of a new series.” p. 405. ………. “Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations.” p. 406.

To be continued.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures. Book One (3)


1803 -1882. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. 1983.

Why read it? Emerson’s unit of thought is the epigrammatic sentences. Emerson writes a poetic prose. Emerson’s beliefs—that each man shares in the Over-Soul, or God, that man possesses, within himself, the means to all knowledge—expressed in his memorable sentences, are of central importance in the history of American culture. The only trouble is most of his ideas are half-truths.

Ideas:
“…that ancient doctrine of Nemesis, who keeps watch in the universe, and lets no offense go unchastised.” p. 292. ………. “…the proverbs of all nations, which are always the literature of reason, or the statements of an absolute truth, without qualification.” p. 293. ………. “…if you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other fastens itself around your own.” p. 293……….. “You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong.” p. 294. ………. “our strength grows out of our weakness.” p. 298. ………. “Thus do all things preach the indifferency of circumstances..” p. 299. ………. “Nothing seems so easy as to speak and to be understood.” p. 312. ………. “If a teacher have any opinion which he wishes to conceal, his pupils will become as fully indoctrinated into that as into any which he publishes.” p. 313. ………. “No man can learn what he has not preparation for learning, however near to his eyes is the object.” p. 313. ………. “Our eyes are holden that we cannot see things that stare us in the face, until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened; then we behold them, and the time when we saw them not is like a dream.” p. 313. ………. “Take the book into your two hands, and read your eyes out; you will never find what I find.” p. 314. ………. “The man may teach by doing, and not otherwise.” p. 316.

To be continued.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures. Book One (2)


1803 -1882. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. 1983.

Why read it? Emerson’s unit of thought is the epigrammatic sentences. Emerson writes a poetic prose. Emerson’s beliefs—that each man shares in the Over-Soul, or God, that man possesses, within himself, the means to all knowledge—expressed in his memorable sentences, are of central importance in the history of American culture. The only trouble is most of his ideas are half-truths.

Ideas:
“…remarks that there is no crime but has sometimes been a virtue.” p. 197. ……….. “The student is to read history actively and not passively; to esteem his own life the text, and books the commentary.” p. 239. ………. “…there is properly no history, only biography.” p. 240. ………. “A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree…” p. 244. ………. “There is at the surface [of history] infinite variety of things; at the center there is simplicity of cause.” p. 242. ………. “…all public facts are to be individualized, all private facts are to be generalized.” p. 246. ………. “Man is his own star.” p. 257. ………. “There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction…that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion…. p. 259. ………. “The power that 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.” p. 259. ………. “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.” p. 261. ………. “He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness.” p. 261. ………. “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.” p. 263. ……….. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” p. 265. ………. “Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh; to be great is to be misunderstood.” p. 265. ………. “Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say ‘I think’…but quotes some saint or sage.” p. 270. ………. “Traveling is a fool’s paradise.” p. 278.

To be continued.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures, Book One. (1)


1803 -1882. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. 1983.

Why read it? Emerson’s unit of thought is the epigrammatic sentences. Emerson writes a poetic prose. Emerson’s beliefs—that each man shares in the Over-Soul, or God, that man possesses, within himself, the means to all knowledge—expressed in his memorable sentences, are of central importance in the history of American culture. The only trouble is most of his ideas are half-truths.

Ideas:
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” p. 115. ……….. “Whilst the multitude of men degrade each other, and give currency to desponding doctrines, the scholar must be a bringer of hope and must reinforce man against himself.” p. 116. ………. “To questions of this sort, nature replies, ‘I grow.’ ” p. 121. ………. “When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.” p. 123. ………. “Has anything been done?... Who did it? … plainly not any man, but all men: it was the prevalence and inundation of an idea.” p. 129. ………. “That man shall be learned who reduceth his learning to practice.” p. 131. ………. “…the whole interest of history lies in the fortunes of the poor.” p. 141. ………. “Every great and commanding moment in the annals of the world is the triumph of some enthusiasm.” p. 147. ………. “…it is not that men do not wish to act; they pine to be employed, but are paralyzed by the uncertainty what they should do.” p. 165. ………. “The two parties which divide the state, the party of conservatism and that of innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made.” p. 173. ………. “He [the radical] legislates for man as he ought to be…but he makes no allowance for friction…. p. 185. ………. “It will never make any difference to a hero what the laws are.”

To be continued.