December 20, 2008
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 December 20, 2008 4:36 PM