« Who Makes the Investment Decisions in Your Household? | Main | The IRS Knows What Happens In Vegas »
Ralph Waldo Emerson Had a Way With Words
By JLP | February 6, 2008
I was reading Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self Reliance” earlier tonight. For some reason the second paragraph of his essay stood out to me:
There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.
I love that first sentence. To me it says: if you don’t work, you don’t eat! I wish our society thought that way.
If you have never read any of Emerson’s essays, you owe it to yourself to check them out. Start off with “Self Reliance” amd then check out “Compensation.” They aren’t easy reads but they’re well worth it.
Topics: Personal Growth | 3 Comments »
February 7th, 2008 at 7:12 am
I read more that the only thing I can be is myself, and good things that I gain will be as the results of my own efforts.
February 7th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I got the same general idea as Plonkee. I do love that essay, and think it should be required reading for every high schooler!
February 7th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Emerson for President 2008.