The world becomes transparent to Wisdom. Everything reveals its reason within itself. The threads of innumerable relations are seen running from part to part & joining remotest points of time &
space.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 3:280
If you use Twitter, you might want to follow Ralph_W_Emerson, the Twitter account for this website. I post some short quotes and journal excerpts on Twitter – generally if they are short enough to fit on Twitter, that is, if they are less than 140 characters. Short sentences don’t look as good on a blog like this, so Twitter is a good complement to content I post here.
And, if you like what you read, pass it on, either by retweeting from your Twitter account, or by sending the URL of this site to your friends.
If you have any comments on this blog, feel free to post them below.
No man can write well who thinks there is any choice of words for him. The laws of composition are as strict as those of sculpture & architecture. There is always one line that ought to be drawn, or one proportion that should be kept & every other line or proportion is wrong, & so far wrong as it deviates from this. So in writing, there is always a right word, & every other than that is wrong. There is no beauty in words except in their collocation. The effect of a fanciful word misplaced, is like that of a horn of exquisite polish growing on a human head.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 3:270
That consciousness which ‘cannot ferment its mass of clay’—that apprehends death, will die. That which looks death in the face—the master, not the slave—carries therein its own hope and assurance. Now my affections prophesy to me out of heaven where my angel is, & when I listen to them I do not fear death—I see plainly that the ends to which I live, are independent of time & place; & neither the hope nor the fear of conscience profess themselves satisfied with the scanty inches of mortal life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 3:267
In conjunction of a new edition of Self-Reliance, which is unfortunately interspersed with comments by other authors, breaking the flow of the text, there is also an audiobook version read by novelist and radio host Kurt Andersen. At just over 90 minutes, Andersen gives the essay a spirited read, but his narration is overly emphatic, and he reads just a bit too quickly, making it hard to follow this oft dense text.
It’s very hard to read Emerson – read out loud, I mean. His sentences are truculent and full of traps, and reading a text like Self-Reliance is as difficult as reciting Shakespeare. You may want to stress certain words, but you may find, as you go on, that they might not be the words that should get the most stress. Andersen overstresses the text; he puts too much stress on too many words, making the text a roller-coaster. I would think that a more sedate reading would be appropriate, allowing the words to speak for themselves; in many cases, I think the stress that Andersen uses is exaggerated and misplaced. But we don’t know exactly how Emerson gave his lectures, so any such reading is personal.
Nevertheless, having an audio version of Emerson’s keystone essay on my iPod is certainly nice, so I can listen to parts of it whenever I want. While there are a couple of other recording of Self Reliance, and of other Emerson essays, this is by far the best, in spite of my above comments. Had it been just a bit slower, and a bit less “gee whiz” at times, it would be nearly perfect.
(As an aside, Andersen’s Heyday is an interesting novel set in 1848. While it’s good but not great, Andersen did a lot of research about this period for the novel, and is well versed with the background of the times in which Emerson wrote Self-Reliance.)
All things take their character from the state of the spectator. Do not complain that the world is barren of interest or destitute of goodness. These curses come home to roost. These arrows rebound on the archer. Blind men in Rome complained that the streets grew dark. To the dull mind all nature is leaden. To the illuminated mind the whole world burns & sparkles with light.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 3:255
Feel a confidence in good & generous sentiments and if you do not desert them, never be afraid they will betray you into danger. Men take counsel in moments of peril of the deceptive face of things & not from themselves. But always listen to yourself, never be tempted to a word of vanity or of pride; persist in the old vulgar road of benevolence; make his good with whom you deal, a real omnipresent motive, whilst & whenever you deal with him. Persist in saying you do not know what you do not know, & you do not care for what you don’t care. Persist in doing what you think right & be so true to yourself & to simplicity as not to expect notice much less flattery.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 3:252
A man is flattered by being told that his form is good, when he thought it bad—he does not know but you are right & of course will be pleased to find that me makes a good figure in the eyes of men.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 3:246
