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.