Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson ..., Volume 5Houghton, Osgood, 1880 |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 37
Page 20
... tion , with the general remark , that this mercenary benefit is one which has respect to a further good . A man is fed , not that he may be fed , but that he may work . CHAPTER III . BEAUTY . A NOBLER want of man is served by nature ...
... tion , with the general remark , that this mercenary benefit is one which has respect to a further good . A man is fed , not that he may be fed , but that he may work . CHAPTER III . BEAUTY . A NOBLER want of man is served by nature ...
Page 26
... tion . The intellectual and the active powers seem to succeed each other , and the exclusive activity of the one generates the exclusive activity of the other . There is something unfriendly in each to the other , but they are like the ...
... tion . The intellectual and the active powers seem to succeed each other , and the exclusive activity of the one generates the exclusive activity of the other . There is something unfriendly in each to the other , but they are like the ...
Page 38
... tion , and his scale of creatures and of merits is as wide as nature . The foolish have no range in their scale , but suppose every man is as every other man . What is not good they call the worst , and what is not hateful they call the ...
... tion , and his scale of creatures and of merits is as wide as nature . The foolish have no range in their scale , but suppose every man is as every other man . What is not good they call the worst , and what is not hateful they call the ...
Page 40
... tion from the first principle of growth in the eye of a leaf , to the tropical forest and antediluvian coal - mine ; every animal function from the sponge up to Hercules , shall hint or thunder to man the laws of right and wrong , and ...
... tion from the first principle of growth in the eye of a leaf , to the tropical forest and antediluvian coal - mine ; every animal function from the sponge up to Hercules , shall hint or thunder to man the laws of right and wrong , and ...
Page 41
... tion , and every process . All things with which we deal preach to us . What is a farm but a mute gospel ? The chaff and the wheat , weeds and plants , blight , rain , in- sects , sun , it is a sacred emblem from the first furrow of ...
... tion , and every process . All things with which we deal preach to us . What is a farm but a mute gospel ? The chaff and the wheat , weeds and plants , blight , rain , in- sects , sun , it is a sacred emblem from the first furrow of ...
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
action appear beauty becomes behold better born character church comes conservatism divine doctrine earth effeminacy Emanuel Swedenborg Epaminondas eternal exist fact faculties faith fear feel genius give Goethe Greece heart heaven Heraclitus honor hope hour human idea inspiration intellect justice justice and truth labor land light live look mankind means ment mind moral nature never noble objects persons philosophy Pindar plant Plato Plotinus poet poetry RALPH WALDO EMERSON reason reform relation religion rich Rome Saturn scholar seems sense sentiment shines slavery society solitude soul speak spirit stand stars sublime things thou thought tion tism to-day trade Transcendentalist true truth ture unim universal Uranus vate virtue whilst whole wisdom wise wish words worship youth Zoroaster
Popular passages
Page 20 - I see the spectacle of morning from the hill-top over against my house, from daybreak to sunrise, with emotions which an angel might share. The long slender bars of cloud float like fishes in the sea of crimson light. From the earth, as a shore, I look out into that silent sea.
Page 14 - The charming landscape which I saw this morning is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is. the poet.
Page 78 - One must be an inventor to read well. As the proverb says, " He that would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry out the wealth of the Indies." There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world.
Page 32 - The world is emblematic. Parts of speech are metaphors, because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind. The laws of moral nature answer to those of matter as face to face in a glass. "The visible world and the relation of its parts, is the dial plate of the invisible.
Page 93 - If there be one lesson more than another which should pierce his ear, it is, The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all; it is for you to dare all.
Page 33 - Can such things be, And overcome us like a summer's cloud, Without our special wonder? You make me strange Even to the disposition that I owe, When now I think you can behold such sights, And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks, When mine are blanch'd with fear.
Page 73 - He shall see that nature is the opposite of the soul, answering to it part for part. One is seal and one is print. Its beauty is the beauty of his own mind. Its laws are the laws of his own mind. Nature then becomes to him the measure of his attainments. So much of nature as he is ignorant of, so much of his own mind does he not yet possess. And, in fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature,
Page 23 - Nature stretches out her arms to embrace man, only let his thoughts be of equal greatness. Willingly does she follow his steps with the rose and the violet, and bend her lines of grandeur and grace to the decoration of her darling child. Only let his thoughts be of equal scope, and the frame will suit the picture. A virtuous man is in unison with her works, and makes the central figure of the visible sphere.
Page 9 - 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...
Page 75 - They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system.