Emerson's Complete Works: Society and solitudeHoughton, Mifflin, 1883 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
admirable animal Archimedes Aristophanes Aristotle artist assembly audience beauty better bring character charm chemic affinity child civil club conversation courage dæmons delight Demosthenes discourse earth eloquence ence face fact farmer fear feats feel friends genius give Goethe Greece Greek happy hear heart hint hour human intellect Isocrates Jotun labor land learning live look master means ment mind moral Nature never Odin Odoacer opinion orator paint Pericles person Phidias Phocion phrenology plants Plato pleasure Plutarch poem poet poetry political Roman scholar seen sentiment Seven Wise Masters Shakspeare society Socrates solitude soul speak speech spirit street talent things thought tion tism Titian true truth uncon wants wealth whilst wisdom wise wish young Younger Edda youth Zeus
Popular passages
Page 289 - While tens of thousands, thinking on the affray, Men unto whom sufficient for the day And minds not stinted or untilled are given, Sound, healthy Children of the God of Heaven, Are cheerful as the rising Sun in May. What do we gather hence but firmer faith That every gift of noble origin Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath...
Page 232 - Ah Ben ! Say how or .when Shall we, thy guests, Meet at those lyric feasts, Made at the Sun, The Dog, the Triple Tun ; Where we such clusters had, As made us nobly wild, not mad? And yet each verse of thine Out-did the meat, out-did the frolic wine.
Page 161 - They come and go like muffled and veiled figures, sent from a distant friendly party; but they say nothing; and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away.
Page 279 - What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now forever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower...
Page 188 - The mathematics and the metaphysics, Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you ; No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en : In brief, sir, study what you most affect.
Page 168 - One of the illusions is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
Page 260 - The rifle butt, or club of wood, Could stand no more than straws. George Nidiver stood still And looked him in the face ; The wild beast stopped amazed, Then came with slackening pace. Still firm the hunter stood, Although his heart beat high ; Again the creature stopped, And gazed with wondering eye.
Page 33 - Still roll ; where all the aspects of misery Predominate; whose strong effects are such As he must bear, being powerless to redress; And that unless above himself he can Erect himself, how poor a thing is man...
Page 258 - Have the courage not to adopt another'? courage. There is scope and cause and resistance enough for us in our proper work and circumstance. And there is no creed of an honest man, be he Christian, Turk, or Gentoo, which does not equally preach it.
Page 64 - We are too much reminded of a medical experiment where a series of patients are taking nitrous-oxide gas. Each patient in turn exhibits similar symptoms, — redness in the face, volubility, violent gesticulation, delirious attitudes, occasional stamping, an alarming loss of perception of the passage of time, a selfish enjoyment of his sensations, and loss of perception of the sufferings of the audience. Plato says that the punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government,...