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مقالات إمرسون : السلسلة الأولى و الثانية
نبذة النيل والفرات:
لو رجعت إلى أية صفحة من هذه المجموعة من مقالات رالف والدو أمرسون لوجدت عبارات تقوم بحد ذاتها كحكمة يهتدى بها أو شعر. ففي كل مقالة يوجد العديد من الملاحظات المنطقية والمستمدة من الواقع لكنها ملهمة بقدر ما هي جميلة الصياغة. إن اختيار أمرسون للكلمات دقيق ومدهش في الوقت نفسه حتى أن القارئ ليذهل لقدرة المؤلف على المحافظة على إيقاعه الاستثنائي الخلاق.
ولد أمرسون في مدينة بوسطن بولاية ماساشوستس في 25 أيار عام 1803. كان والده قسيساً في الكنيسة الولى (الموحدة) في بوسطن وكان يتسم بالليبرالية، والظرف، والثقافة. أما أمه فكانت محافظة وشجاعة وعالية التهذيب. توفي الوالد عندما كان رالف في الثامنة من العمر، فافتتحت والدته عندها سكناً داخلياً. لعل الأثر الأكبر في صياغة سنوات تكوينه الأولى يعود إلى خالته ماري مودي، المرأة الحيوية ذات الأطوار الغريبة التي كانت تؤكد على حب الطبيعة، والاعتماد على النفس والأمانة.
أثناء دراسته في هارفارد للفترة ما بين 1817 و1821، شرع أمرسون بتدوين مفكرته وبدأ عادة الخروج سيراُ على الأقدام لمسافات طويلة في الغابات والحقول وهي العادة التي لازمته طوال حياته. بعد الدراسة في كلية اللاهوت، التحق بسلك الكهنوت وخدم في الكنيسة الأولى ثم الكنيسة الثانية قبل أن يصبح قسيس الكنيسة الخاصة بمجلس شيوخ الولاية.
نشر رالف والدو مقالاته التي يحتويها هذا الكتاب في مجلدين: "السلسلة الأولى" في عام 1841، و"السلسلة الثانية" في عام 1844. كان امرسون قد حقق لنفسه شهرة كمحاضر ومفكر في الوقت الذي صدر فيه الكتابان. ضم كتابه الأول "الطبيعة" (1836) أساسيات فلسفته المتسامية التي تؤكد قدرة الفرد على الإبداع، وبداهة المعرفة، وتقديم الروجي على المادين والاستجابة شبه الدينية للطبيعة.
ومن أهم عناوين مقالات هذين الكتابين نذكر: الشخصية، الروح العليا، الإسماني والواقعي، التدبير، الحب، الصداقة، الاعتماد على النفس، التاريخ، الثواب، السياسة، مصلحو نيو إنجلاند، الفن، البطولة...
لو رجعت إلى أية صفحة من هذه المجموعة من مقالات رالف والدو أمرسون لوجدت عبارات تقوم بحد ذاتها كحكمة يهتدى بها أو شعر. ففي كل مقالة يوجد العديد من الملاحظات المنطقية والمستمدة من الواقع لكنها ملهمة بقدر ما هي جميلة الصياغة. إن اختيار أمرسون للكلمات دقيق ومدهش في الوقت نفسه حتى أن القارئ ليذهل لقدرة المؤلف على المحافظة على إيقاعه الاستثنائي الخلاق.
ولد أمرسون في مدينة بوسطن بولاية ماساشوستس في 25 أيار عام 1803. كان والده قسيساً في الكنيسة الولى (الموحدة) في بوسطن وكان يتسم بالليبرالية، والظرف، والثقافة. أما أمه فكانت محافظة وشجاعة وعالية التهذيب. توفي الوالد عندما كان رالف في الثامنة من العمر، فافتتحت والدته عندها سكناً داخلياً. لعل الأثر الأكبر في صياغة سنوات تكوينه الأولى يعود إلى خالته ماري مودي، المرأة الحيوية ذات الأطوار الغريبة التي كانت تؤكد على حب الطبيعة، والاعتماد على النفس والأمانة.
أثناء دراسته في هارفارد للفترة ما بين 1817 و1821، شرع أمرسون بتدوين مفكرته وبدأ عادة الخروج سيراُ على الأقدام لمسافات طويلة في الغابات والحقول وهي العادة التي لازمته طوال حياته. بعد الدراسة في كلية اللاهوت، التحق بسلك الكهنوت وخدم في الكنيسة الأولى ثم الكنيسة الثانية قبل أن يصبح قسيس الكنيسة الخاصة بمجلس شيوخ الولاية.
نشر رالف والدو مقالاته التي يحتويها هذا الكتاب في مجلدين: "السلسلة الأولى" في عام 1841، و"السلسلة الثانية" في عام 1844. كان امرسون قد حقق لنفسه شهرة كمحاضر ومفكر في الوقت الذي صدر فيه الكتابان. ضم كتابه الأول "الطبيعة" (1836) أساسيات فلسفته المتسامية التي تؤكد قدرة الفرد على الإبداع، وبداهة المعرفة، وتقديم الروجي على المادين والاستجابة شبه الدينية للطبيعة.
ومن أهم عناوين مقالات هذين الكتابين نذكر: الشخصية، الروح العليا، الإسماني والواقعي، التدبير، الحب، الصداقة، الاعتماد على النفس، التاريخ، الثواب، السياسة، مصلحو نيو إنجلاند، الفن، البطولة...
316 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1844
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6061 people want to read
About the author
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3,409 books5,353 followersRalph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston in 1803. Educated at Harvard and the Cambridge Divinity School, he became a Unitarian minister in 1826 at the Second Church Unitarian. The congregation, with Christian overtones, issued communion, something Emerson refused to do. "Really, it is beyond my comprehension," Emerson once said, when asked by a seminary professor whether he believed in God. (Quoted in 2,000 Years of Freethought edited by Jim Haught.) By 1832, after the untimely death of his first wife, Emerson cut loose from Unitarianism. During a year-long trip to Europe, Emerson became acquainted with such intelligentsia as British writer Thomas Carlyle, and poets Wordsworth and Coleridge. He returned to the United States in 1833, to a life as poet, writer and lecturer. Emerson inspired Transcendentalism, although never adopting the label himself. He rejected traditional ideas of deity in favor of an "Over-Soul" or "Form of Good," ideas which were considered highly heretical. His books include Nature (1836), The American Scholar (1837), Divinity School Address (1838), Essays, 2 vol. (1841, 1844), Nature, Addresses and Lectures (1849), and three volumes of poetry. Margaret Fuller became one of his "disciples," as did Henry David Thoreau.
The best of Emerson's rather wordy writing survives as epigrams, such as the famous: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Other one- (and two-) liners include: "As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect" (Self-Reliance, 1841). "The most tedious of all discourses are on the subject of the Supreme Being" (Journal, 1836). "The word miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is a monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain" (Address to Harvard Divinity College, July 15, 1838). He demolished the right wing hypocrites of his era in his essay "Worship": ". . . the louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons" (Conduct of Life, 1860). "I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship" (Self-Reliance). "The first and last lesson of religion is, 'The things that are seen are temporal; the things that are not seen are eternal.' It puts an affront upon nature" (English Traits , 1856). "The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant." (Civilization, 1862). He influenced generations of Americans, from his friend Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, and in Europe, Friedrich Nietzsche, who takes up such Emersonian themes as power, fate, the uses of poetry and history, and the critique of Christianity. D. 1882.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was his son and Waldo Emerson Forbes, his grandson.
The best of Emerson's rather wordy writing survives as epigrams, such as the famous: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Other one- (and two-) liners include: "As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect" (Self-Reliance, 1841). "The most tedious of all discourses are on the subject of the Supreme Being" (Journal, 1836). "The word miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is a monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain" (Address to Harvard Divinity College, July 15, 1838). He demolished the right wing hypocrites of his era in his essay "Worship": ". . . the louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons" (Conduct of Life, 1860). "I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship" (Self-Reliance). "The first and last lesson of religion is, 'The things that are seen are temporal; the things that are not seen are eternal.' It puts an affront upon nature" (English Traits , 1856). "The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant." (Civilization, 1862). He influenced generations of Americans, from his friend Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, and in Europe, Friedrich Nietzsche, who takes up such Emersonian themes as power, fate, the uses of poetry and history, and the critique of Christianity. D. 1882.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was his son and Waldo Emerson Forbes, his grandson.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 178 reviews
March 3, 2009
I would like to preface this review by saying that the body of the review has a lot "spiritual" talk and some people may find my words trite and very syrupy about my inner thoughts on life. So if you are feeling cynical right now, I think you will have a good chuckle. And, if you are like me, someone who always is searching, then maybe you will relate.
Growing up I've always been hopscotching from book to book looking for the tome that could lead my life. When I was 10 or 11 I began pulling the books off my father's bookshelves. And from these books I began pulling finding names like Plato, Kant. Tons of Buddhist and Hindi spiritual epics lined out living room shelves. And my silly-putty brain began copying single phrases that later became the sign-posts that would direct my decision making.
At first, I discovered a book of eastern philosophy. I think it was the Hymns of the Rig Veda. I can't recall any part of this except for the mantra, "The Usefulness in Unusefulness." The metaphor for this idea was a tree that bears sweetfruit and strong wood is destroyed and used, while the tree that bears poison leaves and brittle wood was allowed to live in undisturbed peace. This wasn't the smartest idea to cherish as a pre-teen.
In high-school I was advised to read the book "Man's Search for Meaning" by my AP Psych teacher. This book was a riveting account of one man survival during the holocaust. His survival lead to his practice of his own school of therapy called logotherapy. This new school of psychology is summed up in one quote:
Man can survive any how as long as he is given a why to live for.
--Nietzsche
I was blown away by the complex, human, and tender power of such a simple sentence. I re-read the book every year for three years and returned to precious passages in my greatest grayest moments.
However, I have found a new spiritual muse in my mid-twenties.
Ralph Emerson has become the lighthouse for my soul. Emerson writes with Whitman's American aesthetic applied to eastern spiritual practice in accepting the beauty of the single day and the single life. Each essay broaches very general topics like Self-Reliance, Art, Politics, etc. But, the body of these essays jump off the pages and empowers me like I was at my own personal tent revival.
It wasn't a born again moment or anything that heavy, but the reading allowed fogged windows to clear and permitted my perception to change. I read most of the essays in the middle of the night and at 3am I felt intimate and open to the world all at once.
Ralph inspired in one essay and redefined by the next. I will cling to these essays for a long time I feel, or, at least the feeling of reading and completing these essays will stay and, with hope, the inspiration I grafted onto my soul will blend into myself for a long long time.
Growing up I've always been hopscotching from book to book looking for the tome that could lead my life. When I was 10 or 11 I began pulling the books off my father's bookshelves. And from these books I began pulling finding names like Plato, Kant. Tons of Buddhist and Hindi spiritual epics lined out living room shelves. And my silly-putty brain began copying single phrases that later became the sign-posts that would direct my decision making.
At first, I discovered a book of eastern philosophy. I think it was the Hymns of the Rig Veda. I can't recall any part of this except for the mantra, "The Usefulness in Unusefulness." The metaphor for this idea was a tree that bears sweetfruit and strong wood is destroyed and used, while the tree that bears poison leaves and brittle wood was allowed to live in undisturbed peace. This wasn't the smartest idea to cherish as a pre-teen.
In high-school I was advised to read the book "Man's Search for Meaning" by my AP Psych teacher. This book was a riveting account of one man survival during the holocaust. His survival lead to his practice of his own school of therapy called logotherapy. This new school of psychology is summed up in one quote:
Man can survive any how as long as he is given a why to live for.
--Nietzsche
I was blown away by the complex, human, and tender power of such a simple sentence. I re-read the book every year for three years and returned to precious passages in my greatest grayest moments.
However, I have found a new spiritual muse in my mid-twenties.
Ralph Emerson has become the lighthouse for my soul. Emerson writes with Whitman's American aesthetic applied to eastern spiritual practice in accepting the beauty of the single day and the single life. Each essay broaches very general topics like Self-Reliance, Art, Politics, etc. But, the body of these essays jump off the pages and empowers me like I was at my own personal tent revival.
It wasn't a born again moment or anything that heavy, but the reading allowed fogged windows to clear and permitted my perception to change. I read most of the essays in the middle of the night and at 3am I felt intimate and open to the world all at once.
Ralph inspired in one essay and redefined by the next. I will cling to these essays for a long time I feel, or, at least the feeling of reading and completing these essays will stay and, with hope, the inspiration I grafted onto my soul will blend into myself for a long long time.
January 13, 2017
How to properly appreciate Emerson
Acquire audiobook and digital photo frame, then copy a series of Bob Ross painting images. Edit Emerson into sentences. Set the sentences to play one every ninety seconds, accompanied by an image. Hang in bathroom.
You now have an infinite number of pregenerated shower thoughts spaced out far enough to appreciate them.
Acquire audiobook and digital photo frame, then copy a series of Bob Ross painting images. Edit Emerson into sentences. Set the sentences to play one every ninety seconds, accompanied by an image. Hang in bathroom.
You now have an infinite number of pregenerated shower thoughts spaced out far enough to appreciate them.
August 26, 2014
No review, just one quote about children from the essay "Nature": Read it, it's kind of funny.
The child with his sweet pranks, the fool of his senses, commanded by every sight and sound, without any power to compare and rank his sensations, abandoned to a whistle or a painted chip, to a lead dragoon or a gingerbread-dog, individualizing everything, generalizing nothing, delighted with every new thing, lies down at night overpowered by the fatigue which this day of continual pretty madness has incurred. But Nature has answered her purpose with the curly, dimpled lunatic. She has tasked every faculty, and has secured the symmetrical growth of the bodily frame by all these attitudes and exertions,— an end of the first importance, which could not be trusted to any care less perfect than her own. This glitter, this opaline lustre plays round the top of every toy to his eye to insure his fidelity, and he is deceived to his good. We are made alive and kept alive by the same arts. Let the stoics say what they please, we do not eat for the good of living, but because the meat is savory and the appetite is keen.
August 17, 2009
My Bible.
December 11, 2008
Emerson, for whom my eldest son is named, had a profound effect on me as a teenager. His essays were the first piece of "serious" literature I undertook to read for personal education around age 16. Though I can't say I wholly subscribe to them these days, his ideas on individualist spirituality resonated with me, coming from a Christian family which encouraged self-discovery--with the caveat that your discoveries were orthodox. For someone as intellectually curious as I am, this environment led to frustration as a teen when I actually did what I was told--read the Bible in earnest. From his "Divinity School Address":
It is not instruction, but provocation, that I can receive from another soul. What he announces, I must find true in me, or wholly reject; and on his word, or as his second, be he who he may, I can accept nothing.
"Self-Reliance" in particular I've found myself coming back to periodically over the years and still find much inspiration in. He is most profound here when riffing on maintaining individual identify amidst society.
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. 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.
It is not instruction, but provocation, that I can receive from another soul. What he announces, I must find true in me, or wholly reject; and on his word, or as his second, be he who he may, I can accept nothing.
"Self-Reliance" in particular I've found myself coming back to periodically over the years and still find much inspiration in. He is most profound here when riffing on maintaining individual identify amidst society.
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. 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.
January 30, 2024
The essays lack a sense of logical development or rigor, relying more on gnomic proclamation followed by musings without citation to and analysis of other writers. The essay on Shakespeare, say, quotes a couple lines and limits itself to speculation about the relation of the author’s biography to a metaphysical notion of genius, inter alia. The famous essays on ‘The American Scholar’ and ‘Self-Reliance’ are underwhelming, almost embarrassing, though of course there are worthwhile points to be drawn from all of the essays. Probably should be read as foundational for American literature, though the almost attention-deficit skipping from subject to subject is wearisome.
July 12, 2025
The feel-good self-help kind of nondualism, not the frightening-mystic-wizard kind. Nonetheless, lots of good lessons about life in here, but I really prefer Emerson’s shishya Thoreau for those.
July 14, 2008
Emerson, oh so wise:
A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.
A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
A great man is always willing to be little.
A man is what he thinks about all day long.
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.
Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.
Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.
A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
A great man is always willing to be little.
A man is what he thinks about all day long.
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.
Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.
Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
November 14, 2010
My mother gave me her copy of this a few years ago. Finally picked it up at just the right time, and holy crap is this good. Some of it I didn't get or had a hard time with the language or just didn't feel like reading about the particular essay topic that day. Most was just clear as a bell and rich with meaning and insight. I can't do justice to it and his gift to us with these essays in this pithy little review.
February 26, 2017
القراءة الأولي للفيلسوف الأمريكي رالف والدو إمرسون ..
ويمكن القول إنها القراءة الأولي عنه أيضاً ..
فلقد بحثت عنه كثيراً في أكثر من كتاب ولم أجده في أي كتاب آخر سوي هذا المصدر المهم ..
الكتاب مجموعة من المقالات الفلسفية المنوعة لأفكار إمرسون .. مابين الحديث عن السياسة والطبيعة والحب والفكر والشخصية وغيرها من الأفكار ..
و .. ليس من الضروري أن تكون دارساً للفلسفة لتقرأ الكتاب ..
فالأفكار واضحة وسلسة ومنوعة
..
ويمكن القول إنها القراءة الأولي عنه أيضاً ..
فلقد بحثت عنه كثيراً في أكثر من كتاب ولم أجده في أي كتاب آخر سوي هذا المصدر المهم ..
الكتاب مجموعة من المقالات الفلسفية المنوعة لأفكار إمرسون .. مابين الحديث عن السياسة والطبيعة والحب والفكر والشخصية وغيرها من الأفكار ..
و .. ليس من الضروري أن تكون دارساً للفلسفة لتقرأ الكتاب ..
فالأفكار واضحة وسلسة ومنوعة
..
March 30, 2008
If you haven't read one of the following, you aren't fit to be an American.
"The American Scholar"
"Divinity School Address"
"Nature"
"Self-Reliance"
I'll stick to that.
"The American Scholar"
"Divinity School Address"
"Nature"
"Self-Reliance"
I'll stick to that.
November 2, 2021
To the degree to which they had differing opinions, Thoreau was much more often correct than Emerson. But I have to admit that, for all his meandering and insistence on using every word he stumbles on in the dictionary, I enjoy the experience of reading Emerson much more.
April 19, 2020
"Ajatuksiltaan rikkain kirjailija tällä vuosisadalla" ja "ainoa uuden maailman kansalainen, jonka nimen kehtaa lausua samassa yhteydessä Platonin kanssa". Näin luonnehtivat Friedrich Nietzsche ja John Dewey Ralph Waldo Emersonia (1803-1882). Ja kun on tehnyt kandinsa Nietzschestä ja gradunsa Deweystä ei ole mitään tekosyytä olla lukematta myös Emersonia.
Esseitä muodostuu kahdesta Emersonin alkuperäisestä esseekokoelmasta vuosilta 1841 ja 1844. Näistä ensimmäisessä on myös Emersonin kuuluisin teksti "Itseensä luottava ihminen" (Self-Reliance). Emerson on niitä filosofeja, jotka eivät vaivautuneet kirjoittamaan mitenkään systemaattisesti vaan esseilee menemään tyylillisen ilotulituksen saattelemana. Kuten hän itse kirjoittaa: "Typerä johdonmukaisuus on pienten sielujen kotitonttu".
Esseissään Emerson käsittelee kaikkea historian merkityksestä rakkauteen ja taiteesta politiikkaan. Yleinen ote on samaan aikaan ylevän älyllinen ja väkevästi tunteva. 180 vuotta minun ja Emersonin välissä haittaa vain ajoittain ja suurin osa Emersonin syvällisyydestä hehkuu myös vuonna 2020. Tämä koskee erityisesti henkisyyttä koskevia esseitä (Itseensä luottava ihminen, Ylisielu, Ympyröitä) kun taas käytännöllisiä asioita käsittelevät esseet ovat hieman heikompia (poikkeuksena toki esimerkiksi erinomainen 'Ystävyys').
Emersonin hengellinen pohjavire näkyy vahvasti liki kaikissa esseissä. Hän oli tietynlainen panteisti: Kaikkeus on Yksi ja tämän Yhden Henkiset lait ovat tosi todellisuus. Tämän piilotetun todellisuuden näkyväksi tuleminen on Emersonille ihmiselämän taivoite, hurmos, jota esimerkiksi alkoholilla pyritään halvasti kopioimaan. Tätä todellisuutta heijastavat erityisesti suuret, aika yli-ihmismäiset, heerokset kuten Sokrates, Washington tai Napoleon, "jokainen puhdas ja urhoollinen sydän, joka on palvonut Kauneutta sanalla ja teolla".
Emerson ei kuitenkaan halua, että olisimme kuten nämä yli-ihmiset vaan että olisimme kuin itsemme. Yhdessä essee-kokoelman hienoimmista kohdista hän kirjoittaakin, että lukiessamme Othelloa tai Hamlettia todellinen liikutus on sitä, että mekin todella pystymme samanlaiseen sielun geniukseen kuin Shakespeare.
Emerson, Amerikkalaisen ajattelun hiomaton timantti.
Esseitä muodostuu kahdesta Emersonin alkuperäisestä esseekokoelmasta vuosilta 1841 ja 1844. Näistä ensimmäisessä on myös Emersonin kuuluisin teksti "Itseensä luottava ihminen" (Self-Reliance). Emerson on niitä filosofeja, jotka eivät vaivautuneet kirjoittamaan mitenkään systemaattisesti vaan esseilee menemään tyylillisen ilotulituksen saattelemana. Kuten hän itse kirjoittaa: "Typerä johdonmukaisuus on pienten sielujen kotitonttu".
Esseissään Emerson käsittelee kaikkea historian merkityksestä rakkauteen ja taiteesta politiikkaan. Yleinen ote on samaan aikaan ylevän älyllinen ja väkevästi tunteva. 180 vuotta minun ja Emersonin välissä haittaa vain ajoittain ja suurin osa Emersonin syvällisyydestä hehkuu myös vuonna 2020. Tämä koskee erityisesti henkisyyttä koskevia esseitä (Itseensä luottava ihminen, Ylisielu, Ympyröitä) kun taas käytännöllisiä asioita käsittelevät esseet ovat hieman heikompia (poikkeuksena toki esimerkiksi erinomainen 'Ystävyys').
Emersonin hengellinen pohjavire näkyy vahvasti liki kaikissa esseissä. Hän oli tietynlainen panteisti: Kaikkeus on Yksi ja tämän Yhden Henkiset lait ovat tosi todellisuus. Tämän piilotetun todellisuuden näkyväksi tuleminen on Emersonille ihmiselämän taivoite, hurmos, jota esimerkiksi alkoholilla pyritään halvasti kopioimaan. Tätä todellisuutta heijastavat erityisesti suuret, aika yli-ihmismäiset, heerokset kuten Sokrates, Washington tai Napoleon, "jokainen puhdas ja urhoollinen sydän, joka on palvonut Kauneutta sanalla ja teolla".
Emerson ei kuitenkaan halua, että olisimme kuten nämä yli-ihmiset vaan että olisimme kuin itsemme. Yhdessä essee-kokoelman hienoimmista kohdista hän kirjoittaakin, että lukiessamme Othelloa tai Hamlettia todellinen liikutus on sitä, että mekin todella pystymme samanlaiseen sielun geniukseen kuin Shakespeare.
Emerson, Amerikkalaisen ajattelun hiomaton timantti.
November 28, 2022
إلى المترجمة أمل الشرقي: قتلتي جمال إمرسون ومقالاته بهذه الترجمة.
March 31, 2024
3.318 stars, I liked it, and though I will likely re-read sections, I probably won't read it cover-to-cover again
Ralph Waldo Emerson writes on a variety of topics near and dear to 19th century Americans. He is a master of metaphor and manages to mix in the incomprehensible among clarity of thought in such a way as to leave you wondering if your mind is defective.
He is very forthright in asserting that experiencing nature is essential, that less government is better, that the science of understanding the world is a waste of good time compared to acting on real effects of electricity, magnetism, etc. But most dear to him seems to be that what you think and feel on the inside is the divine reality, and is better than what you learn from others. Both of these latter ideas are deeply flawed, in my opinion, because it provides no means of correcting error - essentially, if you believe it is right, than it must be. Of course, his writing is not the easiest to follow and perhaps I misunderstand.
Curiously, he seems opposed to slavery, but aside from one brief passage that indirectly refers to it, he discusses slavery and abolitionists in the third person. It will be interesting to see if he expounds on this in 'English Traits'. His views on education are that practical education is more valuable than abstract - and whereas his statement on scientific fields ended up far off the mark, he does right in maligning the teaching of languages that would not ever be used by the student after the completion of studies.
I find that taken as a whole, his ideas are inconsistent. And yet, that is one of the things that he says, that inconsistency over time is not necessarily a flaw, but shows the ability to change ("A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."). And as your thoughts develop, expect them to go back and forth: "The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks."
Some other interesting quotes:
* It is the office of a true teacher to show us that God is, not was
* The abolitionist has shown us our dreadful debt to the Southern negro.
* But we are first thoughtless, and then find that we are moneyless.
* We make, by distrust, the thief, and burglar, and incendiary, and by our court and jail we keep him so.
* Every child that is born must have a must chance for his bread.
* In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
* What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.
* But prayer as a means to effect a private end is theft and meanness.
* the only way to have a friend is to be one.
* love is only the reflection of a man’s own worthiness from other men.
* The new statement is always hated by the old,
* Fear not the new generalization
* Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood
* every man believes that he has a greater possibility.
* yet if I have a friend I am tormented by my imperfections.
* Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk.
* Nature through all her kingdoms, insures herself.
* Art and luxury have early learned that they must work as enchantment and sequel to this original beauty.
* the contention is ever hottest on minor matters.
* Not less remarkable is the overfaith of each man in the importance of what he has to do or say.
* Our music, our poetry, our language itself are not satisfactions, but suggestions.
* Society always consists, in greatest part, of young and foolish persons.
* They believe their own newspaper, as their fathers did at their age.
* Every actual State is corrupt.
* Good men must not obey the laws too well.
* A party is perpetually corrupted by personality.
* The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.
* and 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.
* A just thinker will allow full swing to his skepticism.
* There is no privacy that cannot be penetrated. No secret can be kept in the civilized world. Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding.
* He is a strong man who can hold down his opinion.
* People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
* The way to mend the bad world, is to create the right world.
* When the parent, instead of thinking how it really is, puts them off with a traditional or a hypocritical answer, the children perceive that it is traditional or hypocritical.
Finally, this struck a chord:
"Blame is safer than praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as soon as honied words of praise are spoken for me I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies."
Ralph Waldo Emerson writes on a variety of topics near and dear to 19th century Americans. He is a master of metaphor and manages to mix in the incomprehensible among clarity of thought in such a way as to leave you wondering if your mind is defective.
He is very forthright in asserting that experiencing nature is essential, that less government is better, that the science of understanding the world is a waste of good time compared to acting on real effects of electricity, magnetism, etc. But most dear to him seems to be that what you think and feel on the inside is the divine reality, and is better than what you learn from others. Both of these latter ideas are deeply flawed, in my opinion, because it provides no means of correcting error - essentially, if you believe it is right, than it must be. Of course, his writing is not the easiest to follow and perhaps I misunderstand.
Curiously, he seems opposed to slavery, but aside from one brief passage that indirectly refers to it, he discusses slavery and abolitionists in the third person. It will be interesting to see if he expounds on this in 'English Traits'. His views on education are that practical education is more valuable than abstract - and whereas his statement on scientific fields ended up far off the mark, he does right in maligning the teaching of languages that would not ever be used by the student after the completion of studies.
I find that taken as a whole, his ideas are inconsistent. And yet, that is one of the things that he says, that inconsistency over time is not necessarily a flaw, but shows the ability to change ("A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."). And as your thoughts develop, expect them to go back and forth: "The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks."
Some other interesting quotes:
* It is the office of a true teacher to show us that God is, not was
* The abolitionist has shown us our dreadful debt to the Southern negro.
* But we are first thoughtless, and then find that we are moneyless.
* We make, by distrust, the thief, and burglar, and incendiary, and by our court and jail we keep him so.
* Every child that is born must have a must chance for his bread.
* In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
* What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.
* But prayer as a means to effect a private end is theft and meanness.
* the only way to have a friend is to be one.
* love is only the reflection of a man’s own worthiness from other men.
* The new statement is always hated by the old,
* Fear not the new generalization
* Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood
* every man believes that he has a greater possibility.
* yet if I have a friend I am tormented by my imperfections.
* Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk.
* Nature through all her kingdoms, insures herself.
* Art and luxury have early learned that they must work as enchantment and sequel to this original beauty.
* the contention is ever hottest on minor matters.
* Not less remarkable is the overfaith of each man in the importance of what he has to do or say.
* Our music, our poetry, our language itself are not satisfactions, but suggestions.
* Society always consists, in greatest part, of young and foolish persons.
* They believe their own newspaper, as their fathers did at their age.
* Every actual State is corrupt.
* Good men must not obey the laws too well.
* A party is perpetually corrupted by personality.
* The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.
* and 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.
* A just thinker will allow full swing to his skepticism.
* There is no privacy that cannot be penetrated. No secret can be kept in the civilized world. Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding.
* He is a strong man who can hold down his opinion.
* People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
* The way to mend the bad world, is to create the right world.
* When the parent, instead of thinking how it really is, puts them off with a traditional or a hypocritical answer, the children perceive that it is traditional or hypocritical.
Finally, this struck a chord:
"Blame is safer than praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as soon as honied words of praise are spoken for me I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies."
May 3, 2019
I listened to Emerson's Essays on audio. Most of Emerson's essays were first presented in a lecture, so I thought it might be a good way to read Emerson. I found myself having to stop the audio, rewind a bit, and listen again. It seemed to help when I got a physical copy of the essays and read them as I listened to them.
When I got to the end the first time, I started over and listened again.
I think I will listen for a third time this month.
The collection I listened to contained eleven of his most famous essays: "Self-Reliance", "Nature", "Circles", "Friendship", "Heroism", "Prudence", "Compensation", "Gifts", "Manners", "Shakespeare; Or, the Poet", and "The American Scholar".
Here are some quotes I liked from these essays.
"Self-Reliance"
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day."
“The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
“There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. 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."
“Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
"Nature"
“Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house a world; and beyond its world, a heaven. Know then, that the world exists for you. For you is the phenomenon perfect. What we are, that only can we see. All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do. Adam called his house, heaven and earth; Caesar called his house, Rome; you perhaps call yours, a cobler's trade; a hundred acres of ploughed land; or a scholar's garret. Yet line for line and point for point, your dominion is as great as theirs, though without fine names. Build, therefore, your own world.”
"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 theirs? Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.”
“Standing on the bare ground,—my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God."
"Circles"
“I am only an experimenter. Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle any thing as true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker.”
"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."
"The American Scholar"
"What would we really know the meaning of? The meal in the firkin; the milk in the pan; the ballad in the street; the news of the boat; the glance of the eye; the form and the gait of the body; — show me the ultimate reason of these matters; show me the sublime presence of the highest spiritual cause lurking, as always it does lurk, in these suburbs and extremities of nature; let me see every trifle bristling with the polarity that ranges it instantly on an eternal law; and the shop, the plough, and the ledger, referred to the like cause by which light undulates and poets sing; — and the world lies no longer a dull miscellany and lumber-room, but has form and order; there is no trifle; there is no puzzle; but one design unites and animates the farthest pinnacle and the lowest trench."
"Heroism"
'It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, — "Always do what you are afraid to do."'
"Prudence"
"Tomorrow will be like today. Life wastes itself whilst we are preparing to live."
"Compensation"
"Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead skin, and when they would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. Blame is safer than praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies. In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor."
"Friendship"
"The only way to have a friend is to be one."
"The Poet"
"Language is the archives of history … Language is fossil poetry."
"Gifts"
"The only gift is a portion of thyself."
Various other quotes attributed to Emerson:
“A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.”
"It's the not the Destination; it's the journey.”
"Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams."
"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
"If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads."
When I got to the end the first time, I started over and listened again.
I think I will listen for a third time this month.
The collection I listened to contained eleven of his most famous essays: "Self-Reliance", "Nature", "Circles", "Friendship", "Heroism", "Prudence", "Compensation", "Gifts", "Manners", "Shakespeare; Or, the Poet", and "The American Scholar".
Here are some quotes I liked from these essays.
"Self-Reliance"
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day."
“The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
“There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. 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."
“Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
"Nature"
“Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house a world; and beyond its world, a heaven. Know then, that the world exists for you. For you is the phenomenon perfect. What we are, that only can we see. All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do. Adam called his house, heaven and earth; Caesar called his house, Rome; you perhaps call yours, a cobler's trade; a hundred acres of ploughed land; or a scholar's garret. Yet line for line and point for point, your dominion is as great as theirs, though without fine names. Build, therefore, your own world.”
"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 theirs? Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.”
“Standing on the bare ground,—my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God."
"Circles"
“I am only an experimenter. Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle any thing as true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker.”
"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."
"The American Scholar"
"What would we really know the meaning of? The meal in the firkin; the milk in the pan; the ballad in the street; the news of the boat; the glance of the eye; the form and the gait of the body; — show me the ultimate reason of these matters; show me the sublime presence of the highest spiritual cause lurking, as always it does lurk, in these suburbs and extremities of nature; let me see every trifle bristling with the polarity that ranges it instantly on an eternal law; and the shop, the plough, and the ledger, referred to the like cause by which light undulates and poets sing; — and the world lies no longer a dull miscellany and lumber-room, but has form and order; there is no trifle; there is no puzzle; but one design unites and animates the farthest pinnacle and the lowest trench."
"Heroism"
'It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, — "Always do what you are afraid to do."'
"Prudence"
"Tomorrow will be like today. Life wastes itself whilst we are preparing to live."
"Compensation"
"Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead skin, and when they would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. Blame is safer than praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies. In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor."
"Friendship"
"The only way to have a friend is to be one."
"The Poet"
"Language is the archives of history … Language is fossil poetry."
"Gifts"
"The only gift is a portion of thyself."
Various other quotes attributed to Emerson:
“A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.”
"It's the not the Destination; it's the journey.”
"Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams."
"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
"If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads."
January 29, 2022
The Over-Soul, Self-Reliance, and The Poet are extraordinary, kaleidoscopic, profound essays. The others have their moments, but like his admirer Nietzsche, Emerson was better at composing aphorisms than constructing sustained arguments. The disjointed nature of many of these essays frustrated me, and putting the texts on similar topics (virtue, friendship, love, politics, nature) side-by-side in debate with the long philosophical passages from Juliette, Sade convincingly overwhelms Emerson. I'm still grateful to have spent nearly a month considering them, however, and will return to the three outstanding essays and other excerpts I marked in years to come.
September 3, 2020
186-Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson-Ralph Emerson-Essays-1841
Barack
2018/09/17
2020/06/13
—— "Strictly speaking, there is no history, only biography."
"Ralph Emerson Essays and Lecture", first published in the United States in 1841. It records some of Emerson's essays and public speeches.
Emerson (Ralph Emerson) was born in Boston, USA in 1803 and died in 1882. He was born into a priest's family. Studied at Harvard University. Emerson is a representative figure who established the spirit of American culture. Former US President Lincoln called him the "Confucius of America" and the "Father of American Civilization." His literary contributions are mainly in prose and poetry. Representative works: "Essays of Emerson" etc.
Part of the catalog
1. Selected "Speech"
1.1. American scholars
1.2. Seminary speech
2. Selection of "Essay Collection"
2.1. History
2.2. Self-help
3. Selection of "Representatives"
3.1. The philosopher Plato
3.2. The mystic Swedenborg
4. Selection of "British Features"
4.1. First visit to the UK
4.2. Land
Emerson was deeply influenced by Montaigne, but unlike Montaigne's short and succinct essays, Emerson's essays are mostly compiled from his speeches and are much longer and larger. I wonder whether the American audience in the mid-nineteenth century would find Emerson's speech to be too long .
"What is history?" Napoleon said, "It's just a fable made by convention." Emerson's worldview is leaning towards idealism, paying attention to seeking answers from his own heart rather than gaining recognition from the outside world. He has a special essay that is The theme is "self-help". This kind of thinking is quite a bit of Zhuangzi's meaning of "exalting the world without persuading, exalting the world without discouraging it, defining the distinction between inside and outside, and arguing about the realm of honor and disgrace".
"The identity of history is internal, and diversity is obvious. There are endless things on the surface, but there are only simple and clear reasons at the core." Emerson also realized that history is hidden under the seemingly different appearance of history. The unchanging law of development. Tang Taizong once said, "With history as a mirror, we can know the rise and fall."
"Man is his own destiny." Emerson emphasized that human power should be sought from within. There is a sentence in "The Analects of Confucius": "The gentleman seeks himself, the villain seeks others." This "seeking" can be understood as Ask or seek. The so-called daylight with eyes open, and darkness with eyes closed, from an individual perspective, the world is indeed closely related to the individual. Louis XIV’s sentence "Who cares about the flood after I die" has been stinking for thousands of years, but it is also a fact for him.
"Travel is a paradise for fools." Emerson did not agree with the behavior of people seeking inspiration from the outside. He believed that the whole universe could be felt from a drop of dewdrop or a dust of dust. "Ye Yi Bodhi" thought.
"Stick to yourself and don't imitate." Emerson believes that people should find what they are suitable for. This is an extremely difficult thing. Most of them have not found it in their entire life. Some people find it because of subjectivity. It is impossible to engage in objective reasons. Only a few lucky people can discover their passion in the early stages of life and use their entire life to pursue it.
"If you don't pay the price, you are nothing." Emerson sees the world as a duality, and everything will be compensated in the end. The so-called "good fortune and misfortune, fortune and good fortune." There is no absolute difference between good and bad things. , Subjective evaluation affects our attitude towards objective events.
Transcendence is an important part of Emerson's thought. Transcendent means beyond all possible experiences, beyond time, space and other forms of existence, and cannot think about things in categories such as cause and effect, attributes, existence, and nonexistence. This unspeakable existence is somewhat metaphysical, like Lao Tzu said, "The Tao is Taoist, very Taoist."
"Nature has no end, and every end is a beginning; another ray of light always rises at noon, and there is a deeper abyss below each abyss." This is an infinite thought, there is no beginning and no end. , Continuous.
"Any kind of science may be refuted tomorrow; any literary reputation, even the so-called immortal reputation, may also be revised and criticized." There is nothing eternal and the only constant is change itself. "In the middle of the day, there will be confusion, the moon will be eclipsed, the world will be emptied, the news is with the times, and the situation is more than the people!"
" There is such a fable, which comes from a certain period of ancient times when the test was missed. It conveys such an unexplored ancient teaching that at the beginning of the creation of the world, the gods divided "people" into "people" so that people could better Self-reliance; just as the hand is divided into five fingers, you can better achieve your goals. This ancient fable contains a constantly new and noble truth: there is a "whole person"-only partly, or through one kinds of talent reflected in every specific person; you have to accept the whole society, can only find the whole person who is not a farmer, not a professor, not I. engineers, all the people he is a pastor, scholar, yes. A politician is a producer and a soldier. In a state of division of labor or sociality, these functions are assigned to individuals, and each individual has to do his own share of the common work. Each does its own thing, not each other. put one's oar in.
The implication of this fable is that if each person wants to control himself, sometimes he must turn back from his own labor and take all the other laborers into his arms. Unfortunately, this primitive unit, the source of this power, has been divided into tens of thousands, and it is divided and spread out, and the result is splashed into water droplets, which can no longer gather. Society is in such a state: every body is allowed to be amputated from the torso, so there are many walking monsters swaggering through the city-a smart finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never A person. "
Humans need to be independent. It also needs to be united. Through independence , the individual exerts his own nature. Through unity, we become concentrated and scattered forces , and become part of a larger whole, thus glancing at greater wisdom.
" 1. The earliest and most important unnatural influence among the many influences on the soul is none other than the one. Every day, the sun shines; after sunset, the night falls and the stars flash. The wind is always blowing, and the grass is always growing. Every day. Men and women are talking, watching, and being watched. Facing such a magnificent scene, the scholar should stand still and contemplate. He must determine the value of the landscape in his own mind. What is nature to him? God’s picture The web is endless, unreasonable, without beginning and end, but there is always a cyclical force returning to him. In this regard, nature is like the spirit of the scholar himself. He will never find its beginning and its end— —It is so integrated, so endless.
In a remote place, when the natural brilliance shines, the galaxy is connected to the galaxy and shoots out like light, upwards, downwards, without a center, without a periphery-whether in a huge whole or in small particles, it is also anxious Confess yourself to the soul. Began to classify. For the young mind, everything is individual and independent. Soon, it discovered how to bring two things together, and saw two things, one nature; then three, then three thousand; oppressed by its own instinct, it continued to blend everything , Eliminate the anomaly, discover the roots spreading underground, why are things that are opposite and far away merge together, and why can flowers grow on the stems? It soon learned that since the dawn of history, the accumulation and classification of facts have been going on. "
During my high school period, I had a vacation every two weeks. So from the beginning of high school , due to the tension of study life. Every time I have a holiday , I like to walk alone in the square by the Yangtze River after dinner . Naturally there is a way for it to sound . Whether it is the sound of the wind, the sound of the river, or the occasional bird call. Even distant ship gas siren , all it sound part of. Then I could clearly feel his soul by the subtle influence of some kind, but I can not tell in the end is what part of what has been touched and changed. Emerson puts great emphasis on the enlightenment of nature to man. There are many discussions about this in his works.
" When this schoolboy learns to worship the soul and discovers that the current natural philosophy is only a preliminary exploration of the giant hand of the soul, he will look forward to an ever-widening and profound knowledge as he hopes for a moving creator. Seeing that nature is the correspondence of the soul, the two are in agreement everywhere. One is a seal and the other is an imprint. The beauty of nature is the beauty of his own soul. The laws of nature are also the laws of his own soul. So nature becomes a measure of his own achievements. The ruler of life. The more he is ignorant of nature, the less he has mastery of himself. In short, the ancient admonition "know oneself" and the current admonition "study nature" finally become a motto. "
" Second, the next major influence of the spirit flowing into the scholars is the mind of the past-no matter what form the mind is engraved on, whether it is literary, artistic, or institutional. Books are the best influence in the past. Kind of, maybe as long as we consider the value of the book, we will be close to the truth-more convenient to understand the overall effect of this influence. The insight of the book is noble. Scholars in the Kaiyuan era accepted the world around them and brewed in themselves, And give it the new order of his soul, and then speak it out. What enters him is life, what comes out of him is truth; what enters him is short-lived action, what comes out of him is immortal thought. What enters him is The business comes from his poetry. It turned out to be a rigid fact, but now it is a smart thought. It can stand, it can walk. It sometimes forbears, sometimes it flies, and sometimes it is inspired. How deep is the soul that discharges it, it How high it can fly, how long it can sing. "
Most people cannot bear to live in this world without a friend . But many people live a life that does not need books. In fact, in my opinion, a book is like a friend. Some friends are wise and profound. Some friends are witty and humorous. Some friends are suitable for discussing serious propositions in life with him. And some friends are suitable for having fun with him. The range of friends we choose in real life is quite limited. Often only limited to a small area within the scope of their own activities . But by using books as a medium, we can make friends with many different types of people, ancient and modern, both home and abroad. If you don't like reading , you can't experience this kind of fun. It is really a big shortcoming in life.
" But the harm arises from this. The sacredness that belongs to the act of creation—the act of thought—is immediately transformed into historical records. People think that the poet who chants and sings is a god: so poetry becomes a god. The writer is a justice. And the spirit of wisdom: so the book was also rated as the best; just as the love for a hero transformed into a worship of his idol. In a blink of an eye, the book became a poisonous weed: the guide became a tyrant. What we were looking for was a brother who saw But he is an officer. The lazy and abnormal hearts of the public are always reluctant to open up to the influx of reason. But once they are open, once they accept this book, they will cling to it. If this book is degraded, It will sound the cries of exhaustion condemnation.
The university is built on the basis of this book. Countless books have been written based on this book. The authors are just casual thinkers, "not active thinkers". They are talents, those who make mistakes together, those who start from the accepted dogma, and People who are not starting from their own principles. The timid young man grew up in a library, believing that his duty is to accept the ideas put forward by Cicero, Locke, and Bacon, but forget that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were in the library when they wrote these books. young people. "
Mencius said that it is better to believe in the book than to have no book . If we see a person. To one of his relatives, friends or superiors, follow suit. Treat every word of the other party as a standard. Then we will laugh at this person secretly in our hearts. So, if we put a book in the sentence , then both as a motto, this is not it ridiculous? Even books like the Bible and the Analects. Is there something doubtful and questionable about the difference? The copying other people's ideas fall over , as their basis for survival , willing to defend with their lives. Isn't this ridiculous? Is the thought of others necessarily more noble than your own? We can use external thoughts to inspire ourselves, but we must never regard external things as the pillars of our own life building .
" When used properly, a book is the best thing; abused is the worst thing. How to use it properly? What is the only purpose of doing everything possible? A book has no purpose except to give inspiration. I would rather never see A book, unwilling to be distorted by its gravitational force, completely leaves my own orbit and becomes a satellite instead of a galaxy. The only valuable thing in the world is the active soul-the soul, which is free and reigns over everything , Active and active. This is something that everyone has the right to; this is contained in everyone, although they are hindered by most people, they have not yet been born. Active souls can see the absolute truth, can speak the truth, or Create truth. When this action is carried out, it is a genius; it is not the privilege of a confidant, but the legitimate asset of everyone. In its essence, it is forward.
Books, academies, art schools, all kinds of institutions are all stopped because of an old saying about genius. This is very good, they said-let's resolutely follow. They stared at me to death. They only care about the future, not forward. But geniuses always look forward: human eyes grow in front of the head, not behind the head. One can hope. Genius can create. Creation-creation-is a proof of divine temperament.
July 6, 2025
Avoid this book at all costs! Completely unreadable in today's day and age.
Read
June 23, 2017Feel like I could write a series of essays by just combining a bunch of vague aphorisms together.
The universal impulse to believe.
I am explained without explaining.
Religions are ejaculations.
The discovery that we have made that we exist.
Nature and literature are subjective phenomena.
The universe is the bride of the soul.
Sin in others is experience for ourself.
All stealing is comparative.
The universal impulse to believe.
I am explained without explaining.
Religions are ejaculations.
The discovery that we have made that we exist.
Nature and literature are subjective phenomena.
The universe is the bride of the soul.
Sin in others is experience for ourself.
All stealing is comparative.
January 8, 2019
There are many collections of Emerson’s essays in publication – some more complete or more recently compiled – but the one under review here was originally published by the Charles E. Merrill Co. in 1907. It contains eleven essays, including selections from both Emerson’s First and Second Series. There are around 700 end-notes that provide points of clarification. The front matter includes a brief biographical statement on Emerson, a discussion of critical opinion of his work, and a list of his writings.
Rather than discuss the essays as a whole, I’ll describe each in turn.
1.) The American Scholar: a major theme in this essay is avoiding pretentiousness and not neglecting to see the virtue in the simple and unrefined.
2.) Compensation: Emerson had an interesting philosophy on this subject, believing that everything that belongs to one or which one ought to have will come to one. There is a Taoist feel to this essay, e.g. “For everything you have missed, you have gained something else: and for everything you gain, you lose something.”
3.) Self-Reliance: This is my favorite essay, hands down. It’s full of pithy, powerful, and quotable statements. e.g. “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.” “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” “If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument.” Even where it’s not so concise and quotable, it delivers important ideas.
4.) Friendship: There is a quote that I think is quite illustrative of Emerson’s thoughts on the subject: “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.”
5.) Heroism: Consistent with the ideas in “Self-Reliance,” Emerson proposes that the route to heroism is in trusting oneself and having inner confidence, rather than in trying to satisfy the dictates of society.
6.) Manners: Emerson was a fan of a polite and genteel nature. This may seem at odds with his general inclination to avoid pretension or elitism, but if one treats all people with polite respect, then these ideals do not conflict.
7.) Gifts: Related to the earlier essay on compensation, this piece decries getting caught up in giving opulent gifts and thinking it a grand virtue, while it doesn’t criticize gift giving all together.
8.) Nature: This is the subject that one likely most associates with Emerson and his friend and protégé, Thoreau. As one expects, Emerson suggests one spend more time in nature. Something interesting I found in this piece was his rebuke of pseudo-science. Not that it should be unexpected, but one must consider that the line between science and the occult wasn’t as fully formed as it is today and Emerson was a mystic. But consider this: “Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology; psychology, mesmerism (with intent to show where our spoons are gone); and anatomy and physiology become phrenology and palmistry.”
9.) Shakespeare; or, The Poet: While honoring Shakespeare, Emerson points out that our recognition of brilliance isn’t recognition of originality. e.g. “The greatest genius is the most indebted man.”
10.) Prudence: Emerson insists that sagacity in managing oneself and one’s affairs is crucial.
11.) Circles: This essay covers a lot of ground in dealing with topics that are cyclical – though they may seem progressive. In parts it reminds me of the portion of self-reliance that says “society is a wave,” and which goes on to explain how it’s not a matter of society steadily advancing because it recedes on one side as quickly as it gains on the other. This can be seen in a quote such as: “New arts destroy the old.” I think a quote that drives to the heart of not falling into the illusion of believing fashions of the moment are an invariable truth can be seen here: “No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker with not past at my back.”
I highly recommend this collection of essays. Some have maintained greater relevance than others, but all offer some interesting food for thought.
Rather than discuss the essays as a whole, I’ll describe each in turn.
1.) The American Scholar: a major theme in this essay is avoiding pretentiousness and not neglecting to see the virtue in the simple and unrefined.
2.) Compensation: Emerson had an interesting philosophy on this subject, believing that everything that belongs to one or which one ought to have will come to one. There is a Taoist feel to this essay, e.g. “For everything you have missed, you have gained something else: and for everything you gain, you lose something.”
3.) Self-Reliance: This is my favorite essay, hands down. It’s full of pithy, powerful, and quotable statements. e.g. “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.” “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” “If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument.” Even where it’s not so concise and quotable, it delivers important ideas.
4.) Friendship: There is a quote that I think is quite illustrative of Emerson’s thoughts on the subject: “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.”
5.) Heroism: Consistent with the ideas in “Self-Reliance,” Emerson proposes that the route to heroism is in trusting oneself and having inner confidence, rather than in trying to satisfy the dictates of society.
6.) Manners: Emerson was a fan of a polite and genteel nature. This may seem at odds with his general inclination to avoid pretension or elitism, but if one treats all people with polite respect, then these ideals do not conflict.
7.) Gifts: Related to the earlier essay on compensation, this piece decries getting caught up in giving opulent gifts and thinking it a grand virtue, while it doesn’t criticize gift giving all together.
8.) Nature: This is the subject that one likely most associates with Emerson and his friend and protégé, Thoreau. As one expects, Emerson suggests one spend more time in nature. Something interesting I found in this piece was his rebuke of pseudo-science. Not that it should be unexpected, but one must consider that the line between science and the occult wasn’t as fully formed as it is today and Emerson was a mystic. But consider this: “Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology; psychology, mesmerism (with intent to show where our spoons are gone); and anatomy and physiology become phrenology and palmistry.”
9.) Shakespeare; or, The Poet: While honoring Shakespeare, Emerson points out that our recognition of brilliance isn’t recognition of originality. e.g. “The greatest genius is the most indebted man.”
10.) Prudence: Emerson insists that sagacity in managing oneself and one’s affairs is crucial.
11.) Circles: This essay covers a lot of ground in dealing with topics that are cyclical – though they may seem progressive. In parts it reminds me of the portion of self-reliance that says “society is a wave,” and which goes on to explain how it’s not a matter of society steadily advancing because it recedes on one side as quickly as it gains on the other. This can be seen in a quote such as: “New arts destroy the old.” I think a quote that drives to the heart of not falling into the illusion of believing fashions of the moment are an invariable truth can be seen here: “No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker with not past at my back.”
I highly recommend this collection of essays. Some have maintained greater relevance than others, but all offer some interesting food for thought.
June 14, 2009
Re-read Compensation because there was a time when Emerson's words spoke so deeply to me. Wanted to see how I felt about his words again now. The concluding paragraph of Compensation still stands as an inspiring manifesto. Particularly when I've found myself in the midst of deep change, that paragraph speaks volumes to me.
I don't 100% agree with Emerson's dualistic view of things. I try and take into account his life and times, but what I love about Emerson is how deeply he thought and what he stirs.
I don't 100% agree with Emerson's dualistic view of things. I try and take into account his life and times, but what I love about Emerson is how deeply he thought and what he stirs.
May 20, 2016
An education.
There are very few writers who have ever imparted more wisdom in so few words. If Thomas Jefferson is the spirit of America then Ralph Waldo Emerson was its soul. A person who reads the words of Emerson cannot help but be haunted by the feeling of an eternal season of spring infused with the eternal sadness of life's inevitable end. Emerson is required reading for all thoughtful men and women. This particular book is excellent and no one looking to purchase Emerson's work in the kindle format should hesitate to purchase it.
There are very few writers who have ever imparted more wisdom in so few words. If Thomas Jefferson is the spirit of America then Ralph Waldo Emerson was its soul. A person who reads the words of Emerson cannot help but be haunted by the feeling of an eternal season of spring infused with the eternal sadness of life's inevitable end. Emerson is required reading for all thoughtful men and women. This particular book is excellent and no one looking to purchase Emerson's work in the kindle format should hesitate to purchase it.
May 20, 2012
This was one of those "I should have finished this in college" return trips. Emerson attacks ideas in an exclusively American way, one of vigor, amateur spirit, and (misplaced but endearing) certainty. Want to understand where we came from, why we're still arguing about what our fundamental rights really are, what makes the citizens of this country (all of us) so flawed and fabulous? Then read it. If you don't care, try Twilight.
August 3, 2012
I first read this book in the late 80s as it was required reading as part of studies I was undertaking about mind power and the creativity of thought, under an American New Thought movement. And along with Man's presumptuous Brain, by H.T.W Simeons, it represents one of a handful of books that has greatly influenced me. I still have my original copy, and bought a copy recently for a friend for his birthday.
October 18, 2013
We'd read some Emerson in high school English classes and had read much about him in American History classes, but I'd never seriously attended to him until finding this old volume at a used bookstore. Thinking familiarity with him culturally important, I spent a couple of evenings reading through these essays, many of them inspirational in a quaint nineteenth-century manner.
November 14, 2013
It is a great pleasure to read these essays in a book. Of course, they can be found online, but reading them in a printed book, on paper between covers, is a great pleasure, and this edition from Belknap Press leaves nothing to be desired.
December 17, 2020
Le parole di un amico, un'anima affine, dell'unico uomo che merita veramente di essere appellato, ancor di più in tempi di stupido rumore come i nostri, filosofo. La sola lettura che bisogna fare; l'unico libro da avere sempre con sé.
Ritorno a te, e sempre lo farò, profeta di Concord!
Ritorno a te, e sempre lo farò, profeta di Concord!
October 28, 2020
Audio: 1/1/2012; 14 hrs., 2 min.; Blackstone Publishing 9781483067704;
SUMMARY / EVALUATION:
I have long wanted to read Emerson, so finally downloaded this collection of his Essays from Overload. What reminded me that I'd wanted to get familiar with his essays was the book on Oliver Wendell Holmes. It had mentioned that Emerson was one of his father’s friends whom he’d met as a boy and came to admire especially while in college and forever after. I did enjoy listening to these essays, but I have to confess much of it called for more thinking than listening straight through allows for. The man liked to write poetically, in fact every essay begins with a poem. It seems to me he writes ambiguously and obscurely. Or maybe it just seems so to me because so much of the language, or the way it was used wasn’t familiar.
From the “Gifts” essay for example: "Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat stern countenance of ordinary nature: they are like music heard out of a work-house. Nature does not cocker us: we are children, not pets: she is not fond: everything is dealt to us without fear or favor, after severe universal laws. Yet these delicate flowers look like the frolic and interference of love and beauty."
I understand the passage now, but at first listen, I needed more time. The first line is clear enough, although I am not certain I agree. I know many a recipient of a gift of flowers who have deigned them impersonal, common, and slap-dash. The next line though, requires that I consider nature and search my mind for what might be meant by “ordinary nature” as opposed to flowers, and what about it presents a stern countenance. And, of course, I’m not familiar with work-houses, but presumably they were devoted to some sort of labor so a little thought makes it clear that music coming from one might seem cheerily incongruous and might brighten its mood a little. “Cocker” isn’t a word I commonly hear, but I assume it is the same as cockle, similar to coddle. But I don’t understand how nature treats us more childlike than pet-like—or what nature would have to do to cocker us, and if it did, would we then be pet-like? See what I mean about it taking more consideration than one has time for listening to it straight through? So, audio, for me, isn’t really the most appropriate format for this.
I did learn that Emerson had no interest in the occult arts—in one of the essays he states that to the selfish, astronomy becomes astrology, and then I think, anatomy becomes phrenology, and there is a third one.
And then, compassion doesn’t seem to be a valued trait, as in the “Self Reliance” essay, he says, “Do not tell me, as a good man did today, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, 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.” I shouldn’t say I never feel this way myself, but its not something I admire in myself or others or would necessarily advise emulating.
I did enjoy listening to these essays though.
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Essays are available at the Gutenberg Project, complete with a glossary for many of the terms. This would be the better mode to consume I believe.
AUTHOR:
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882). According to Wikipedia, he went by his middle name, Waldo, and “was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.”
NARRATOR:
Jeff Riggenbach (January 12, 1947?) I’m not sure I found the right Jeff Riggenbach online, but if it’s the fellow with this birthday, he is an advocate of the Libertarian movement. It makes sense to me that such a fellow would enjoy narrating Emerson’s essays, so I’m thinking I found the right one. At any rate he has a good narrative voice for this.
GENRE: Philosophy
LOCATIONS: Boston, Massachusetts
SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From "Nature"
"It seems as if the day was not wholly profane, in which we have given heed to some natural object. The fall of snowflakes in a still air, preserving to each crystal its perfect form; the blowing of sleet over a wide sheet of water, and over plains; the waving rye-fields; the mimic waving of acres of houstonia, whose inumerable florets whiten and riplle before the eye; the reflections of trees and flowers in glassy lakes; the musical steaming odorous south wind, which converts all trees to wind-harps, the crackly and spurting of hemlocki in the flames; or of pine-logs, which yield glory to the walls and faces in the sitting-room,---these are the music and pictures of the most ancient religion"
RATING: I give this a three, but I suspect if I spent some time reading the print I would come to appreciate it more.
SUMMARY / EVALUATION:
I have long wanted to read Emerson, so finally downloaded this collection of his Essays from Overload. What reminded me that I'd wanted to get familiar with his essays was the book on Oliver Wendell Holmes. It had mentioned that Emerson was one of his father’s friends whom he’d met as a boy and came to admire especially while in college and forever after. I did enjoy listening to these essays, but I have to confess much of it called for more thinking than listening straight through allows for. The man liked to write poetically, in fact every essay begins with a poem. It seems to me he writes ambiguously and obscurely. Or maybe it just seems so to me because so much of the language, or the way it was used wasn’t familiar.
From the “Gifts” essay for example: "Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat stern countenance of ordinary nature: they are like music heard out of a work-house. Nature does not cocker us: we are children, not pets: she is not fond: everything is dealt to us without fear or favor, after severe universal laws. Yet these delicate flowers look like the frolic and interference of love and beauty."
I understand the passage now, but at first listen, I needed more time. The first line is clear enough, although I am not certain I agree. I know many a recipient of a gift of flowers who have deigned them impersonal, common, and slap-dash. The next line though, requires that I consider nature and search my mind for what might be meant by “ordinary nature” as opposed to flowers, and what about it presents a stern countenance. And, of course, I’m not familiar with work-houses, but presumably they were devoted to some sort of labor so a little thought makes it clear that music coming from one might seem cheerily incongruous and might brighten its mood a little. “Cocker” isn’t a word I commonly hear, but I assume it is the same as cockle, similar to coddle. But I don’t understand how nature treats us more childlike than pet-like—or what nature would have to do to cocker us, and if it did, would we then be pet-like? See what I mean about it taking more consideration than one has time for listening to it straight through? So, audio, for me, isn’t really the most appropriate format for this.
I did learn that Emerson had no interest in the occult arts—in one of the essays he states that to the selfish, astronomy becomes astrology, and then I think, anatomy becomes phrenology, and there is a third one.
And then, compassion doesn’t seem to be a valued trait, as in the “Self Reliance” essay, he says, “Do not tell me, as a good man did today, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, 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.” I shouldn’t say I never feel this way myself, but its not something I admire in myself or others or would necessarily advise emulating.
I did enjoy listening to these essays though.
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Essays are available at the Gutenberg Project, complete with a glossary for many of the terms. This would be the better mode to consume I believe.
AUTHOR:
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882). According to Wikipedia, he went by his middle name, Waldo, and “was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.”
NARRATOR:
Jeff Riggenbach (January 12, 1947?) I’m not sure I found the right Jeff Riggenbach online, but if it’s the fellow with this birthday, he is an advocate of the Libertarian movement. It makes sense to me that such a fellow would enjoy narrating Emerson’s essays, so I’m thinking I found the right one. At any rate he has a good narrative voice for this.
GENRE: Philosophy
LOCATIONS: Boston, Massachusetts
SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From "Nature"
"It seems as if the day was not wholly profane, in which we have given heed to some natural object. The fall of snowflakes in a still air, preserving to each crystal its perfect form; the blowing of sleet over a wide sheet of water, and over plains; the waving rye-fields; the mimic waving of acres of houstonia, whose inumerable florets whiten and riplle before the eye; the reflections of trees and flowers in glassy lakes; the musical steaming odorous south wind, which converts all trees to wind-harps, the crackly and spurting of hemlocki in the flames; or of pine-logs, which yield glory to the walls and faces in the sitting-room,---these are the music and pictures of the most ancient religion"
RATING: I give this a three, but I suspect if I spent some time reading the print I would come to appreciate it more.
August 18, 2007
I love Emerson. Someday I will move to my own Walden Pond.
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