amin's blog: December 2008 Archives

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December 25, 2008

In the ancient Persian religion, it is forbidden to petition for blessings to themselves individually; the prayer must extend to the whole Persian nation.

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 12:56 PM

Heraclitus was a fool, who wept always for the miseries of human life. or was he blind and deaf to beauty and melody? In his day, was the sky black, and were snakes instead of flowers coiled in his path? Was his mind reversed in its organization;- had he Despair for Hope, and Remorse for Memory? Could his disordered eye discern a savage Power sitting in this Splendid Universe, thwarting the good chances of Fortune and promoting the bad, sowing seeds of sorrow for glory, turning grace and tranquility to desolation, and heaven to hell? Then let him weep on. True philosophy hath a clearer sight, and remarks amid the vast disproportions of human condition a great equalization of happiness; an intimate intermingling of pleasure with every gradation, down to the very lowest of all. Pleasant and joyous are the connections of our sympathy and affection – this is proved by the very tear which marks their dissolution; and even that pang of separation and loss is relieved by its own indulgence…

Happiness lies at our own door. Misery is further away. Until I know by bitter personal experience that the world is the accursed seat of all misfortunes, and as long as I find it a garden of delights – I am bound to adore the Beneficent Author of my life…No representations of foreign misery can liquidate your debt to Heaven. You must join the choral hymn to which the Universe resounds in the ear of Faith, and I think, of Philosophy…

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 12:54 PM

The child who refuses to pollute its little lips with a lie, and the archangel who refuses with indignation to rebel in the armies of heaven against the Most High, act alike in obedience to a law which pervades all intelligent beings. The law is the Moral Sense; a rule coextensive and coeval with Mind. It derives its existence from the eternal character of the Deity, of which we spoke above; and seems of itself to imply, and therefore to prove his Existence…Whence comes this strong universal feeling that approves or abhors actions? Manifestly not from matter, which is altogether unmoved by it, and the connection of which with it is a thing absurd – but from a mind, of which it is the essence. That Mind is God.

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 12:52 PM

We have one remarkable evidence to the character, from eternity, of that Being, in the divine determination to make man in the image of God. In all the insignificance and imperfection of our nature, in the guilt to which we are liable, and the calamity which guilt has accumulated, - man triumphs to remember that he bears about him a spark which all beings venerate and acknowledge to be the emblem of God, - which may be violated, but which cannot be extinguished. And we remark with delight the confirmations of this belief in the opening features of human character. And the little joy of the child who plants a seed and sees himself instrumental in the creation of a flower, forcibly reminds us of that beneficence which built the heavens and the earth, and saw that it was good.

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 12:52 PM

I think it is pretty well known that more is gained to a man’s business by one half hour’s conversation with his friend, than by very many letters; for, face to face, each can distinctly state his own views; and each chief objection is started and answered; and, moreover, a more definite notion of one’s own sentiments and intentions, with regard to the matter, are gathered from his look and tones, than it is possible to gain from paper. It is therefore a hint borrowed from Nature, when a lesson of morals is conveyed to an audience in the engaging form of a dialogue, instead of the silence of a book, or the cold soliloquy of an orator. When this didactic dialogue is improved by the addition of pathetic or romantic circumstances, and, in the place of indifferent speakers, we are presented with the characters of great and good men, of heroes and demigods, thus adding to the sentiments expressed the vast weight of virtuous life and character – the wit of the invention is doubled.

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 12:50 PM

How noble a masterpiece is the tragedy of Hamlet: it can only be spoken of and described by superlatives. There is a deep and subtle wit, with an infinite variety, and every line is golden.

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 12:48 PM

I rejoice in the full and unquestionable testimony which certifies the sufferings of the Martyrs; as the most undeniable merit of the human race; it proves the existence of a consistency and force of character which might else to common minds appear chimerical…In those moments when a desperate view of the wrong side of the society will sometimes totally unsettle our convictions, and reason almost leans to doubt and Atheism, because the world is frail or mad, this saving recollection comes up like an angel of light to assure us that man have suffered the fierceness of the torture, have endured, and died for the faith…To keep inviolate the divine law, they have broken over the law of nature and the native fears of man and have dared to immolate this mysterious existence and try to the gulfs of futurity…

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 12:46 PM

December 20, 2008

It is strange that a world should be so dear which speculatively and seriously we acknowledge to be so unsatisfying and so dark. Not all its most glorious array when Nature is appareled in her best, and when Art toils to gratify, -not the bright sun itself, and the blazing firmament wherein he stands as chief – can prevent a man, at certain moments, from saying to his soul – “It is vanity.” No wild guesses, no elaborate reasoning can surmount this testimony to the familiar truth, that the human spirit has a higher origin than matter, a higher home than the earth; that it is too capacious to be always cheated with trifles, and too long-lived to amalgamate of mortality…

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 4:41 PM

In connection with the remarks on the Drama it should be further said, that this art is the most attractive, naturally, of all. The others speak to man from a distance, through cold and remote associations. The literature of a generation generally addresses but a scanty portion of society; of their contemporaries, history and poetry are confined to a few readers; philosophy and science to still fewer; but the buskined muse comes out impatient from these abstractions, to repeat in a popular and intelligible form the productions of the closet, to copy the manners of high and low life, to act upon the heart; and succeeds, by thus avoiding the haughty port of the Parnassian queens, to draw the multitude by the cords of love. Folly wins where wisdom fails; and the policy of adding to our attractions even at the cost of some wit, is seldom repented. This is the excellence of the drama which pretends to nothing more than to be a true picture of life.

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 4:39 PM

Life is the spark which kindles up a soul and opens its capacities to receive the great lessons which it is appointed to learn of the Universe-of Good-of Evil- of accountability – of Eternity; of Beauty, of Happiness. The inestimable moment in which the history of past ages is opened, its own relations to the Universe explained; its dependence and independence shewn; the time to reach itself the affections, and to gratify them, to ally itself in kindly bonds with other beings of like destiny; the time to educate a citizen of unknown spheres; the time to serve the Lord.

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 4:38 PM

Superior intellects are only drawn out into society by the action of those inducements which society holds for them. If, therefore, there are any who are above the solicitation of wealth, honor, and influence, and who can laugh ever at the love of Fame, the last infirmity of noble minds, there will be nothing left worth offering them, to attract them from their solitude; they must pass on through their discipline and education of life, unsympathized with, unknown, or perhaps, ignorantly despised. Thus the archangels pass among us unseen, for, if known, they could not be appreciated, and having faculties and energies which our organs can never measure, it is better that we never meet.

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 4:37 PM

Never mistake yourself to be great, or designed for greatness, because you have been visited by an indistinct and shadowy hope that something is reserved for you beyond the common lot. It is easier to aspire than to do the deeds. The very idleness which leaves you leisure to dream of honor is the insurmountable obstacle between you and it. Those who are fitly furnished for the weary passage from mediocrity to greatness seldom find time or appetite to indulge that hungry and boisterous importunity for excitement which weaker intellects are prone to display. That which helps them on to eminence is in itself sufficient to engross the attention of all their powers, and to occupy the aching void. Greatness never comes upon a man by surprise, and without his exertions or consent; No, it is another sort of Genii who traverse your path suddenly; it is Poverty which travels like an armed man; it is Contempt which meets you in the corners and highways with a hiss, and Anger which treads you down as with the lighting. Greatness is a property for which no man gets credit too soon; it must be possessed long before it is acknowledged. Nor do I think this to be so absolutely rare and unattainable as it is commonly esteemed. This very Hope, and panting after it, which was alluded to, is, in some sort, and earnest of the possibility of success. God doubtless designed to form minds of different mould, and to create distinctions in intellect; still the extraordinary effects of education attest a capacity of improvement to an indefinite degree…

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 4:36 PM

December 18, 2008

…Solitude has but few sacrifices to make, and may be innocent, but can hardly be greatly virtuous like Abraham, like Job, like the Roman Regulus or the Apostle Paul. Great actions, from their nature, are not done in the closet; they are performed in the face of the sun, and in behalf of the world…

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 5:00 PM

A beautiful thought struck me suddenly, without any connection which I could trace with my previous trains of though and feeling. It had no analogy to any notion I ever remembered to have found; it surpassed all others in the energy and purity in which it clothed itself; it put by all others by the novelty it bore, and the grasp it laid upon every fiber; for the time, it absorbed all other thoughts;-all the faculties-each in his cell, bowed down and worshiped before this new Star.-Ye who roam among the living and the dead, over flowers or among the cherubims, in real or ideal universes, do not whisper my thought !

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 4:59 PM

Poetical expression serves to embellish dull thoughts, but we love better to follow the poet, when the muse is so ethereal and the thought so sublime that language sinks beneath it.

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 4:58 PM

The invisible connection between heaven and earth, the solitary principle which unites intellectual beings to an account and makes of men moral being – religion – is distinct and peculiar, alike in its origin and its end, from all other elations. It is essential to the Universe. You seek in vain to contemplate the order of things apart from its existence. You can no more banish this than you can separate from yourself the notions of Space and Duration. Through all the perverse mazes and shadows of infidelity the Light still makes itself visible, until the reluctant mind shudders to acknowledge the eternal encompassing presence of Deity. If you can abstract it from the Universe, the Soul is bewildered by a system of things of which no account can be given; instances of tremendous power – and no hand found to form them; a thousand creations in a thousand spheres all pointing upward to a single point – and no object there to see and receive – it is all a vast anomaly. Restore Religion and you give to those energies a sublime object…

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 4:57 PM

December 16, 2008

I am sick – if I should die what would become of me? We forget ourselves and our destinies in health, and the chief use of temporary sickness is to remind us of these concerns. I must improve my time better. I must prepare myself for the great profession I have purposed to undertake. I am to give my soul to God and withdraw from sin and the world the idle or vicious time and thoughts I have sacrificed to them; and let me consider this as a resolution by which I pledge myself to act in all variety of circumstances, and to which I must recur often in times of carelessness and temptation, to measure my conduct by the rule of conscience.

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 12:07 PM

The human soul, the world, the universe are laboring on to their magnificent consummation. We are not fashioned thus marvelously for naught. Thus straining conceptions of man, the monuments of his reason and the whole furniture of his faculties is adapted to mightier views of things than the mightiest he has yet behold. Roll on, then, thou stupendous Universe, in sublime, incomprehensible solitude, in an unbeheld but sure path. The finger of God is pointing out your way. And when ages shall have elapsed and time is no more, while the stars shall fall from heaven and the Sun become darkness and the moon blood, human intellect, purified and sublimed, shall mount to perfection of unmeasured and ineffable enjoyment of knowledge and glory. Man shall come to the presence of Jehovah. (In the manner of Chateaubriand)

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 12:05 PM

December 8, 2008

What a great man was Milton! So marked by nature fir the great Epic Poet that was to bear up the name of these latter times. In “Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty”, written while young, his spirit is already communing with itself and stretching out in its colossal proportions and yearning for the destiny he was appointed to fulfill.

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 12:21 PM

I find myself often idle, vagrant, stupid and hollow. This is somewhat appalling and, if I do not discipline myself with diligent care, I shall suffer severely from remorse and the sense of the inferiority hereafter. All around me are industrious and will be great, I am indolent and shall be insignificant. Avert it, heaven! Avert it, virtue! I need excitement.

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 12:20 PM

When we see an exquisite specimen of painting-whence does the pleasure we experience arise? From the resemblance, it is immediately answered, to the works of nature. It is granted that this is in part the cause, but it can’t explain the whole pleasure we enjoy; for we see more perfect resemblances (as a stone apple or fruit) without this pleasure. No, it arises from the power which we immediately recollect to be necessary to the creation of the painting.

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 12:14 PM

Let us suppose a pulpit orator to whom the path of his profession is yet untried, but whose talents are good and feelings strong, and his independence, as a man, in opinion and in action is established; let him ascend the pulpit for the first time, not to please or displease the multitude, but to expound to them the words of the book and to waft their minds and devotions to heaven. Let him come to them in solemnity and strength, and when he speaks he will claim attention with an interesting figure and an interested face. To expand their views of sublime doctrines of the religion, he may embrace the universe and bring down the stars from their courses to do homage to their Creator. Here is a fountain which cannot fail them. Wise Christian orators have often and profitably magnified the inconceivable power of the Creator as manifested in his works, and thus elevated and sobered the mind of the people and gradually drawn them off from the world they have left by the animating ideas of Majesty, Beauty, Wonder, which these considerations bestow. Then when life and its frivolities is fastly flowing away from before them, and the spirit is absorbed in the play of its mightiest energies, and their eyes are on him and their hearts are in heaven, then let him discharge his fearful duty, then let him unfold the stupendous designs of celestial wisdom, and whilst admiration is speechless, let him minister to their unearthly wants, and let the ambassador of the Most High prove himself worthy of his tremendous vocation. Let him gain the tremendous eloquence which stirs men’s souls, which turns the world upside down, but which loses all its filth and retains all its grandeur when consecrated to God. When a congregation are assembled together to hear such an apostle, you may look round and you will see the faces of men bent forward in the earnestness of expectation, and in this desirable frame of mind the preacher may lead them whithersoever he will; they have yielded up their prejudices to the eloquence of the lips which the archangel hath purified and hallowed with fire, and this first sacrifice is the sin-offering which cleanses them.

Emerson - Journals Volume I

Posted by amin at 12:00 PM

December 4, 2008

holy envy

Those who at this time are going on to perfection proceed very differently and with quite another temper of spirit; for they progress by means of humility and are greatly edified, not only thinking nothing of their own affairs, but having very little satisfaction with themselves; they consider all others as far better, and usually have a holy envy of them, and an eagerness to serve God as they do. For the greater is their fervor, and the more numerous are the works that they perform, and the greater is the pleasure that they take in them, as they progress in humility, the more do they realize how much God deserves of them, and how little is all that they do for His sake; and thus, the more they do, the less are they satisfied. So much would they gladly do from charity and love for Him, that all they do seems to them nothing; and so greatly are they importuned, occupied and absorbed by this loving anxiety that they never notice what others do or do not do; or id they do notice it, they always believe, as I say, that all others are far better than they themselves. Wherefore, holding themselves as of little worth, they are anxious that others too should thus hold them, and should despise and depreciate that which they do. And further, if men should praise and esteem them, they can in no wise believe what the say; it seems to them strange that anyone should say these good things of them.