Every once in a while we stumble upon a book which we are almost ashamed of not liking. This is the case for me.I just did not like it. I was basically forcing myself to read every essay without skipping. It was so tedious and I just really didn't care what he has to say. There were a few quotes that I thought were beautiful, but those were maybe 2-3 in the whole book. Other than that I found it very hard to read and I really didn't care for his ideas and thoughts on those topics. Not even his f...

Clearly I have changed since high school; as well as the world around me. These essays now seem much deeper and more insightful than they did the first time around. Emerson is not an easy read but he made me think differently about the world around me than I did before reading him. About myself as well. What a great gift that is!

I have a suspicion that one's views on Emerson depend very much on whether one feels they are living up to his statutes or not. Emerson is all about doing things your own way, being your best self, not giving in to excuses. Many of us, including myself, find that a bitter pill to swallow; or depending on the day, words of encouragement; or, axioms in which we are in total agreement. I always found his words uplifting, encouraging. Do I live up to his standards? Does anyone? There is still someth...

I've read Self-Reliance, The American Scholar, The Divinity School Address and part of Nature. I'm somewhat ashamed that I'm reading them for the first time here at the age of forty. Yet, I don't know how much of it I would have appreciated at a younger age. In my literature class, I find the youth sadly apathetic despite the pop trend towards involvement. Perhaps weighty discussions at 8:00 am are a bit overwhelming for their drug and alcohol saturated minds.

Emerson, for whom my eldest son is named, had a profound effect on me as a teenager. His essays were the first piece of "serious" literature I undertook to read for personal education around age 16. Though I can't say I wholly subscribe to them these days, his ideas on individualist spirituality resonated with me, coming from a Christian family which encouraged self-discovery--with the caveat that your discoveries were orthodox. For someone as intellectually curious as I am, this environment led...

How to properly appreciate EmersonAcquire audiobook and digital photo frame, then copy a series of Bob Ross painting images. Edit Emerson into sentences. Set the sentences to play one every ninety seconds, accompanied by an image. Hang in bathroom.You now have an infinite number of pregenerated shower thoughts spaced out far enough to appreciate them.

My mother gave me her copy of this a few years ago. Finally picked it up at just the right time, and holy crap is this good. Some of it I didn't get or had a hard time with the language or just didn't feel like reading about the particular essay topic that day. Most was just clear as a bell and rich with meaning and insight. I can't do justice to it and his gift to us with these essays in this pithy little review.

186-Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson-Ralph Emerson-Essays-1841Barack2018/09/172020/06/13 —— "Strictly speaking, there is no history, only biography." "Ralph Emerson Essays and Lecture", first published in the United States in 1841. It records some of Emerson's essays and public speeches. Emerson (Ralph Emerson) was born in Boston, USA in 1803 and died in 1882. He was born into a priest's family. Studied at Harvard University. Emerson is a representative figure who established the spirit of America

Emerson teaches me something new every time I read him.

To the degree to which they had differing opinions, Thoreau was much more often correct than Emerson. But I have to admit that, for all his meandering and insistence on using every word he stumbles on in the dictionary, I enjoy the experience of reading Emerson much more.

I would like to preface this review by saying that the body of the review has a lot "spiritual" talk and some people may find my words trite and very syrupy about my inner thoughts on life. So if you are feeling cynical right now, I think you will have a good chuckle. And, if you are like me, someone who always is searching, then maybe you will relate.Growing up I've always been hopscotching from book to book looking for the tome that could lead my life. When I was 10 or 11 I began pulling the b...

When I was 14 years old, my mother gave me Emerson's Essays as a gift. She always did things like this, which made me a lifelong reader of great literature. Emerson's wisdom reinforced the wisdom I had already heard or learned and added to it as well. So with that and Franklin's Autobiography, I made a list for self-improvement, another theme that I was at least conscious of for the rest of my life. Perfecto (R.I.P.) told my friend Xavier about the list when it dropped out of my pocket onto the

The Over-Soul, Self-Reliance, and The Poet are extraordinary, kaleidoscopic, profound essays. The others have their moments, but like his admirer Nietzsche, Emerson was better at composing aphorisms than constructing sustained arguments. The disjointed nature of many of these essays frustrated me, and putting the texts on similar topics (virtue, friendship, love, politics, nature) side-by-side in debate with the long philosophical passages from Juliette, Sade convincingly overwhelms Emerson. I'm...

Emerson frustrates me. He writes beautifully, is often quite wise, but has a style that is, to me disjointed to the point where I often find him difficult to follow. It's as if he's brilliant at aphorisms but not nearly so good at constructing an extended argument.

No review, just one quote about children from the essay "Nature": Read it, it's kind of funny.The child with his sweet pranks, the fool of his senses, commanded by every sight and sound, without any power to compare and rank his sensations, abandoned to a whistle or a painted chip, to a lead dragoon or a gingerbread-dog, individualizing everything, generalizing nothing, delighted with every new thing, lies down at night overpowered by the fatigue which this day of continual pretty madness has in...

If you haven't read one of the following, you aren't fit to be an American."The American Scholar""Divinity School Address""Nature""Self-Reliance"I'll stick to that.

Emerson, oh so wise:A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us. A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.A great man is always willing to be little.A man is what he thinks about all day long. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way. Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well. Character is higher than intellect. A

When the first series of these essays were first published in 1841 the author’s aunt Mary remarked that it was “a strange medly [sic] of atheism and false independence.” Other reviewers were more favorable and the two series went on to become best sellers on both sides of the Atlantic. I think Aunt Mary’s charge of atheism is a bit misleading, since Emerson believed in The Over-Soul, of which all individual souls participated. I expect today’s generic term would be Higher Power. However, I must

Feel like I could write a series of essays by just combining a bunch of vague aphorisms together.The universal impulse to believe.I am explained without explaining.Religions are ejaculations.The discovery that we have made that we exist.Nature and literature are subjective phenomena. The universe is the bride of the soul.Sin in others is experience for ourself.All stealing is comparative.

I listened to Emerson's Essays on audio. Most of Emerson's essays were first presented in a lecture, so I thought it might be a good way to read Emerson. I found myself having to stop the audio, rewind a bit, and listen again. It seemed to help when I got a physical copy of the essays and read them as I listened to them. When I got to the end the first time, I started over and listened again.I think I will listen for a third time this month. The collection I listened to contained eleven of his m...