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Experience [Annotated]
"Experience" is the name of an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was published in the collection Essays: Second Series in 1844. The essay is preceded by a poem of the same title.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, 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.
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Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson:
"Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself and you shall have the sufferage of the world."
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Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, 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.
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Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson:
"Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself and you shall have the sufferage of the world."
22 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1860
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About the author
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3,419 books5,365 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 - 13 of 13 reviews
September 7, 2015
I read the version at: http://www.emersoncentral.com/experie...
Jim - A fascinating essay on the question of free will.
There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope that here, at least, we shall find reality, sharp peaks and edges of truth. But it turns out to be scene-painting and counterfeit. The only thing grief has taught me, is to know how shallow it is.
Jim - Emerson is referring to the death of a child here: I would say there is something missing in him.
Temperament is the iron wire on which the beads are strung. Of what use is fortune or talent to a cold and defective nature?
Jim - Was Emerson referring to himself here. Perhaps this is why he as a great essayist, but mediocre poet?
He seems to have read too much of David Hume, and not nearly enough of Thomas Reid.
Temperament also enters fully into the system of illusions, and shuts us in a prison of glass which we cannot see. There is an optical illusion about every person we meet. In truth, they are all creatures of given temperament, which will appear in a given character, whose boundaries they will never pass: but we look at them, they seem alive, and we presume there is impulse in them. In the moment it seems impulse; in the year, in the lifetime, it turns out to be a certain uniform tune which the revolving barrel of the music-box must play. Men resist the conclusion in the morning, but adopt it as the evening wears on, that temper prevails over everything of time, place, and condition, and is inconsumable in the flames of religion. Some modifications the moral sentiment avails to impose, but the individual texture holds its dominion, if not to bias the moral judgments, yet to fix the measure of activity and of enjoyment.
Given such an embryo, such a history must follow.
Jim - A fine statement of the reality that we have autonomy to follow the dictates of our genotype/phenotype, but not the "free will" to change what we are programmed to want.
Let us treat the men and women well: treat them as if they were real: perhaps they are.
Jim - So much for solipsism.
How easily, if fate would suffer it, we might keep forever these beautiful limits, and adjust ourselves, once for all, to the perfect calculation of the kingdom of known cause and effect.
The individual is always mistaken. He designed many things, and drew in other persons as coadjutors, quarrelled with some or all, blundered much, and something is done; all are a little advanced, but the individual is always mistaken. It turns out somewhat new, and very unlike what he promised himself.
The miracle of life which will not be expounded, but will remain a miracle, introduces a new element.
The sentiment from which it sprung determines the dignity of any deed, and the question ever is, not, what you have done or forborne, but, at whose command you have done or forborne it.
The baffled intellect must still kneel before this cause, which refuses to be named, — ineffable cause, which every fine genius has essayed to represent by some emphatic symbol, as, Thales by water, Anaximenes by air, Anaxagoras by (Nous) thought, Zoroaster by fire, Jesus and the moderns by love:
People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing.
The sixty-seventh book/in this case essay/article/etc. I have finished this year.
Jim - A fascinating essay on the question of free will.
There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope that here, at least, we shall find reality, sharp peaks and edges of truth. But it turns out to be scene-painting and counterfeit. The only thing grief has taught me, is to know how shallow it is.
Jim - Emerson is referring to the death of a child here: I would say there is something missing in him.
Temperament is the iron wire on which the beads are strung. Of what use is fortune or talent to a cold and defective nature?
Jim - Was Emerson referring to himself here. Perhaps this is why he as a great essayist, but mediocre poet?
He seems to have read too much of David Hume, and not nearly enough of Thomas Reid.
Temperament also enters fully into the system of illusions, and shuts us in a prison of glass which we cannot see. There is an optical illusion about every person we meet. In truth, they are all creatures of given temperament, which will appear in a given character, whose boundaries they will never pass: but we look at them, they seem alive, and we presume there is impulse in them. In the moment it seems impulse; in the year, in the lifetime, it turns out to be a certain uniform tune which the revolving barrel of the music-box must play. Men resist the conclusion in the morning, but adopt it as the evening wears on, that temper prevails over everything of time, place, and condition, and is inconsumable in the flames of religion. Some modifications the moral sentiment avails to impose, but the individual texture holds its dominion, if not to bias the moral judgments, yet to fix the measure of activity and of enjoyment.
Given such an embryo, such a history must follow.
Jim - A fine statement of the reality that we have autonomy to follow the dictates of our genotype/phenotype, but not the "free will" to change what we are programmed to want.
Let us treat the men and women well: treat them as if they were real: perhaps they are.
Jim - So much for solipsism.
How easily, if fate would suffer it, we might keep forever these beautiful limits, and adjust ourselves, once for all, to the perfect calculation of the kingdom of known cause and effect.
The individual is always mistaken. He designed many things, and drew in other persons as coadjutors, quarrelled with some or all, blundered much, and something is done; all are a little advanced, but the individual is always mistaken. It turns out somewhat new, and very unlike what he promised himself.
The miracle of life which will not be expounded, but will remain a miracle, introduces a new element.
The sentiment from which it sprung determines the dignity of any deed, and the question ever is, not, what you have done or forborne, but, at whose command you have done or forborne it.
The baffled intellect must still kneel before this cause, which refuses to be named, — ineffable cause, which every fine genius has essayed to represent by some emphatic symbol, as, Thales by water, Anaximenes by air, Anaxagoras by (Nous) thought, Zoroaster by fire, Jesus and the moderns by love:
People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing.
The sixty-seventh book/in this case essay/article/etc. I have finished this year.
August 30, 2013
The language on Emerson is beautiful. In this discourse, the essence of 'first experience' is said to be most beautiful and/or memorable upon the beginnings of each chapter in life. That is why, for example you tend to remember your 'first love', 'first car', 'first kiss' etc It's not that other experience isn't equally important, but it is the firsts that awaken's our senses to the essence of that type of knowledge/experience... the door through which life is entered.
January 20, 2013
Just like with anything Emerson, I love the writing but completely reject the philosophy of Transcendentalism.
Read
December 16, 2025so meandering. but i love the invisible eyeball
Read
October 30, 2019I can’t give this a rating because it is beyond my comprehension. Emerson’s work is dense and I appreciate it for what it is, but I think the meaning of his work hits just below the surface for me. Far enough below that it resonates, but just deep enough to land out of my reach. I can’t put thoughts into words yet because they haven’t fully formed. They may never fully form until they’re put into practice or discussed face to face with a friend. Until then I am a vessel of new information waiting for an opportunity to appreciate.
June 5, 2020
All experiences of objects are experienced by the subject. If the subject is the real experiences, are the objects real?
We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to skate well on them.
To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom
The results of life are uncalculated and uncalculable. The years teach much which the days never know.
We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to skate well on them.
To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom
The results of life are uncalculated and uncalculable. The years teach much which the days never know.
December 11, 2019
“Never mind the ridicule, never mind the defeat; up again, old heart?”
Yes; up again.
Yes; up again.
April 8, 2021
Some golden moments, but the main thread is too self-inflated, obscure and idealist in the extreme to follow.
September 18, 2024
It felt a bit repetitive, but I definitely like it more than “Self-Reliance”.
June 17, 2025
Feeling rather mid about this one. I like the questions asked but find the explication and responses provided less engaging or impressive.
February 5, 2017
Lu en français. Ralf Waldo Emerson a eu beaucoup de chagrin à la mort de son fils Waldo en 1842. Il a écrit un poème poignant "Threnody" : " I see my empty house, I see my trees repair heir boughs, And he, - the wondrous child, .... has disappeared from the Day's eye...". Emerson a écrit Expérience en 1844. Je ne suis pas sûre d'avoir tout compris (texte du 19ème siècle, même traduit). C'est une réflexion sur toute vie "locataire superficielle du globe", sur la condition humaine "cette découverte que nous avons faite, que nous existons", sur les croyances. Il est mélancolique. Quoiqu'on fasse, cela a peu d'importance sur un fond de néant "nous glissons, pareils à des spectres, à travers la nature", mais Emerson propose malgré tout une ligne de conduite : "La vie est une tempête de chimères et le seul lest que je connaisse, c'est de respecter l'heure présente".
March 8, 2015
Emerson has some of the most bang for your buck in terms of useful ideas, worded beautifully, in the fewest amount of pages. He also sounds like a cool dude at a bar talking to you, never haughty or too prescriptive.
February 9, 2015
Started out fairly farfetched for me, but developed into a very truthful account of human life in all its defects and the beauty Emerson finds in them.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews