How do you rate Emerson with some number of stars? I think he’d have an essay to write about the whole concept.

BEAUTIFUL."Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say 'I think,' 'I am,' but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown fl...

I have been reading (parts) of this book for a long time. The part on nature was very good, transcendentalism was informative-I hadn't actually studied the transcendentalists before and had only passing knowledge about them. His views on the Fugitive Slave Act was brilliant. He takes sharp aim at Daniel Webster for selling out and being the deciding vote in the Senate. He also had views on John Brown that were quite amazing. I had expected that he would be favorable towards him but did not expec...

I found this astounding collection of essays rather hard to get through. Not because they were bad, or poorly written, but because they were so wonderful. While I thought some of his ideas were rather questionable - I'm not a big fan of natural theology (at least as I understand it) - his positions were still clearly made and forced me to seriously consider a number of my positions. Some parts I struggled to understand, but after thinking about them for a bit I found the ideas so great that I co...

In reading Emerson it readily becomes apparent why it is that such as Nietzsche revered his essaying person, tapping as he does into that interior reserve of the individual spirit who—whether she be isolated in starlit reclusion or thronged by fellow beings in day aglow bustle—must grapple, at the last, with the fact that she is alone and in that solitariness must self-arm to face the enduring struggle of time-taut life. I don't always agree with Emerson (or Nietzsche, for that matter) but I lov...

Emerson is my favorite poet/philosopher, and this one volume contains all his writings you could ever need. I agree with Emerson wholeheartedly about 33% of the time, disagree with him vehemently about 33%, and can't decide whether I agree or not the rest of the time. But he's always compelling, even if I think he's dead wrong.The greatest thing about Emerson is how quotable he is. There are dozens of great one-liners here. One of my favorites: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little m...

** 4 stars **Emerson wrote of Thomas Carlyle, "He is a very national figure, and would by no means bear transplantation" (837). The same can be said of Ralph Waldo Emerson. If you want to understand the ethos of the United States, then read Emerson. He truly is the quintessential American writer: optimistic, individualistic to a fault, charismatic and inspiring.Henry James wrote that Emerson "had frequently an exquisite elegance," and you can see this everywhere in his writing. He is often poeti...

The answers to all of my questions about life can be found in the pages of this book. Love, friendship, nature, politics, ethics, and the complex challenges that make up human experience are all examined in a moving, beautiful, eloquent and fiercely intelligent way. A cherished part of my library.

Can anybody truly be done reading emerson?

It’s hard to overstate what the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson have done to awaken me to beauty and truth. Emerson packs more wisdom in one sentence than most writers articulate in a lifetime. Mary Oliver, the best selling poet in America told me simply, “Emerson is all you need.”Though Emerson writes on a myriad of topics, his thematic core is consistent: “All things are made of one hidden stuff.” “The world globes itself in a drop of dew.” “The heart and soul of all men being one, this bitter...

I cannot say I have read this book in entirety. Emerson is more of a writer to take with you on life’s journey; you don’t so much as complete Emerson; rather you check in with him periodically along the way.Mary Oliver wrote a superb introduction to him in this edition. Take a look at it before you start the journey with Emerson. If anyone ever found the essence of stopping and smelling the roses or coffee, it is Emerson.

American philosopher and Harvard professor Stanley Cavell claims "Emerson and Thoreau... are the founding philosophers of America" and comparable to Plato. Before reading this I tackled Thoreau. Emerson was his mentor, and they were both considered part of the Transcendental circle in mid-Century America. I found Emerson less irritating than Thoreau, but less readable and challenging. By challenging I don't mean less difficult, but less thought-provoking. I think Emerson is harder to parse, to "...

this is my jack off material. gorgeous language. "self-reliance" is life changing.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882)« Essential writings »Emerson’s essays’ are the mirror of his vast knowledge drawn from extensive readings in ancient historical philosophies and religions, as well as personal studies of theology and preaching in his younger years as a minister of the Protestant Church.Not unlike Montaigne, he quotes throughout his writings, words, beliefs, and thoughts of Plato, Heraclitus, Aristotle, Zenon, Epicurus, and other, more recent, philosophers.He will also quote anci...

Ralph Waldo Emerson is probably my favorite philosopher/poet. He combines poetry and prose wonderfully, treating human affairs, emotions and morals purely as aspects of nature, and all of nature as having the same soul as people. The range of his subjects is wide and varied, from the most metaphysical aspects of reality to the most mundane actions of daily life. Despite him having written in the mid 19th century, and often writing more as a poet than most philosophers, his writing is pretty stra...

I read most of this collection during an independent study during my junior year of college. I picked it up again last night and can't put it down; Emerson changed the way I think about everything.

“Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other, and thus makes him necessary to society. This native determination guides his labor and his spending. He wants an equipment of means and tools proper to his talent. And to save on this point were to neutralize the special strength and helpfulness of each mind. Do your work, respecting the excellence of the work, and not its acceptableness.”As you can see,Mr. Emerson was a man of higher spiri...

Back to Basics: Reading EmersonReading Emerson might make readers slightly sad (more about that later), not that Emerson expresses gloom in his most influential essays: Nature, TheDivinity School Address, and Self Reliance. His words reflect the optimism he felt for the power of the individual to understand how they fit into the world and how they might serve their community and country. A child of the American Revolution, he and his audience...Continue reading on Examiner.com: The Essential Wri...

I initially planned to read this a bit a night over the year, but I incidentally found myself reading large chunks every night. Everything about the transcendentalist movement resonates (it’s called that because transcendentalism is meant to explain the aspects of nature and humanity that transcend time or space, so that an Ancient Greek and Emerson himself could converse about the same experience). Emerson is a poet-philosopher or a philosopher poet, and I recommend his writings to anyone who w...