Emerson’s Essays
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays reiterate the theme of the recurrent miracle of creation that takes place each day in the soul. He makes the reader aware of fresh potentialities in the Self. All this he accomplishes not by argument, but by eloquence.
Emerson starts off with a simple, yet powerful declaration:
There is no great and no small
To the Soul that maketh all;
And where it cometh, all things are;
And it cometh everywhere.
My mom gave me Emerson’s Essays when I was a teenager. I’m just realizing how much of an influence it’s had on my own writing in content and form. Emerson was an American orator, poet, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement in the early nineteenth century. He’s been called the “voice of renewal.” It is clear that he believed in the divine promise in every human being. To him the world about us is the visible appearance of what is invisible.
Emerson has been described as “the vista of the timeless caught in a sunburst of words.” If you’re looking for inspiration, then spend some time with Emerson.
FAVORITE INSIGHTS
“There is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same.” (p. 1)
“Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent.” (p. 1)
“Every revolution was first a thought in one man’s mind, and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era.” (pp. 2-3)
“‘What is history,’ said Napoleon, ‘but a fable agreed upon?'” (p. 6)
“Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws.” (p. 11)
“A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages.” (p. 32)
“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind.” (p. 35)
“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.” (p. 38)
“For every thing you have missed, you have gained something else; and for every thing you gain, you lose something.” (p. 71)
“Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults. As no man thoroughly understands a truth until first he has contended against it, so no man has a thorough acquaintance with the hindrances or talents of men until he has suffered from the one and seen the triumph of the other over his own want of the same.” (p. 85)
“Our strength grows out of our weakness.” (p. 85)
“A great man is always willing to be little.” (p. 85)
“When the act of reflection takes place in the mind, when we look at ourselves in the light of thought, we discover that our life is embosomed in beauty.” (p. 93)
“Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him.” (p. 100)
“The height of the pinnacle is determined by the breadth of the base. Every man has this call of the power to do somewhat unique, and no man has any other call.” (p. 101)
“As a man thinketh so is he, and as a man chooseth so is he and so is nature.” (p. 103)
“What your heart thinks great, is great. The soul’s emphasis is always right.” (p. 103)
“Our dreams are the sequel of our waking knowledge. The visions of the night always bear some proportion to the vision of the day.” (p. 106)
“The man may teach by doing, and not otherwise.” (p. 109)
“No man need be deceived who will study the changes of expression. When a man speaks the truth in the spirit of truth, his eye is as clear as the heavens. When he has base ends and speaks falsely, the eye is muddy and sometimes asquint.” (p. 112)
“A man passes for that he is worth.” (p. 113)
“Every soul is a celestial Venus to every other soul.” (p. 121)
“Love is our highest word and the synonym of God.” (p. 121)
“From the highest degree of passionate love to the lowest degree of good will, they make the sweetness of life.” (p. 137)
“Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection.” (p. 137)
“When a man becomes dear to me I have touched the goal of fortune.” (p. 147)
“Our faith comes in moments; our vice is habitual.” (p. 188)
“Man is a stream whose source is hidden.” (p. 189)
“The action of the soul is oftener in that which is felt and left unsaid than in that which is said in any conversation.” (p. 197)
“The soul is the perceiver and revealer of truth.” (p. 197)
“Revelation is the disclosure of the soul” (p. 200)
“The faith that stands on authority is not faith.” (p. 209)
“One man’s justice is another’s injustice; one man’s beauty another’s ugliness; one man’s wisdom another’s folly; as one beholds the same objects from a higher point of view.” (p. 223)
“We have little control over our thoughts. We are the prisoners of ideas.” (p. 232)
“Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion.” (p. 296)
“Character is nature in the highest form.” (p. 336)
“Nature is always consistent, though she feigns to contravene her own laws. She keeps her laws, and seems to transcend them.” (p. 389)
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