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The Complete Work of Ralph Waldo Emerson - RWE.org

The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson - RWE.org

  • Home
  • Complete WorksExpand
    • Complete WorksExpand
      • I – Nature, Addresses & LecturesExpand
        • Nature: Introduction
        • Chapter I. Nature
        • Chapter II. Commodity
        • Chapter III. Beauty
        • Chapter IV. Language
        • Chapter V. Discipline
        • Chapter VI. Idealism
        • Chapter VII. Spirit
        • Chapter VIII Books
        • Chapter VIII. Prospects
        • The American Scholar
        • Divinity School Address
        • Literary Ethics
        • The Method of Nature
        • Introductory Lecture on the Times
        • The Conservative
        • The Transcendentalist
        • The Young American
        • IX The Over-Soul
      • II – Essays IExpand
        • I History
        • II Self-Reliance
        • III Compensation
        • IV Spiritual Laws
        • V Love
        • VI Friendship
        • VII Prudence
        • VIII Heroism
        • X Circles
        • 11. Intellect
        • 12. Art
      • Vol VII – Society and Solitude (1870)Expand
        • Chapter VI Farming
        • Chapter VII Works and Days
        • Chapter VIII Books
        • Chapter IX Clubs
        • Chapter X Courage
        • Chapter XI Success
        • Chapter XII Old Age
        • Chapter I Society and Solitude
        • Chapter II Civilization
        • Chapter IV Eloquence
        • Chapter V Domestic Life
      • III – Essays IIExpand
        • I The Poet
        • II Experience
        • III Character
        • IV Manners
        • V Gifts
        • VIII Nominalist and Realist
        • IX New England Reformers
        • VII Politics
        • VI Nature
      • IV – Representative MenExpand
        • Plato; or, the Philosopher
        • Swedenborg; or, the Mystic
        • Uses of Great Men
        • Montaigne; or, the Skeptic
        • Shakspeare; or, the Poet
        • Napoleon; or, the Man of the World
        • Goethe; or, the Writer
      • IX – Poems
      • VIII – Letters and Social AimsExpand
        • Social Aims
        • Poetry and Imagination
        • Eloquence
        • Resources
        • The Comic
        • Quotation and Originality
        • Progress of Culture
        • Persian Poetry
        • Inspiration
      • XII – Natural History of the IntellectExpand
        • Art and Criticism
        • The Natural History of Intellect
        • The Celebration of Intellect
        • Country Life
        • Concord Walks
        • Boston
        • Michael Angelo
        • Milton
      • X – Lectures and Biographical SketchesExpand
        • Demonology
        • Aristocracy
        • Perpetual Forces
        • Education
        • The Superlative
        • The Sovereignty of Ethics
        • The Preacher
        • The Man of Letters
        • Plutarch
        • The Scholar
        • Life and Letters in New England
        • Ezra Ripley, D. D.
        • Chardon Street Convention
        • Mary Moody Emerson
        • Samuel Hoar
        • Henry David Thoreau (Eulogy)
        • Carlyle
        • George L. Stearns
      • XI – MiscellaniesExpand
        • I – XVExpand
          • I The Lord’s Supper
          • III Letter to President Van Buren
          • V War
          • II Historical Discourse at Concord
          • VI The Fugitive Slave Law
          • VIII The Assault Upon Mr. Sumner
          • IX Speech on Affairs in Kansas
          • X John Brown–Speech at Boston
          • XI John Brown–Speech at Salem
          • XII Theodore Parker
          • XIII American Civilization
          • XIV The Emancipation Proclamation
          • XV Abraham Lincoln
        • XV1 – XXXExpand
          • XVI Harvard Commeroration Speech
          • XVII Dedication of the Soldiers’ Monument in Concord
          • XVIII Editors’ Address
          • XX Woman
          • VII – Society and Solitude
          • XIX Address to Kossuth
          • XXI Consecration of Sleepy Hollow Cemetary
          • XXII Robert Burns
          • XXIV Humboldt
          • XXIII Shakespeare
          • XXVI Speech at Banquet in Honor of Chinese Embassy
          • XXIX Address at Opening of Concord Free Public Library
          • XXX The Fortune of the Republic
      • VI – Conduct of LifeExpand
        • I Fate
        • II Power
        • III Wealth
        • IV Culture
        • V Behavior
        • IX Illusions
        • VII Considerations by the Way
        • VIII Beauty
        • VI Worship
      • V – English TraitsExpand
        • Chapter I First Visit to England
        • Chapter II Voyage to England
        • Chapter III Land
        • Chapter IV Race
        • Chapter V Ability
        • Chapter VI Manners
        • Chapter VII Truth
        • Chapter VIII Character
        • Chapter IX Cockayne
        • Chapter X Wealth
        • Chapter XIII Religion
        • Chapter XI Aristocracy
        • Chapter XII Universities
        • Chapter XIV Literature
    • Concordance
    • Journals I – X
    • RWE Works Blog
  • BiographyExpand
    • Bibliography
    • Old Friends
    • Emerson Glossary
    • The Conscious Order
  • Time Line
  • Articles
  • ResourcesExpand
    • Concordance
    • Search RWE.org
    • How To Use RWE.org
    • RWE Society Archives
    • RWE AdvisorExpand
      • Webmaster/Web Designer
      • General Advisor
  • Contact us
  • RWE Book Store
The Complete Work of Ralph Waldo Emerson - RWE.org
The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson - RWE.org
Complete Works of RWE | VIII - Letters and Social Aims

Social Aims

ByRalph Waldo Emerson December 1, 2015March 16, 2016

Who does not delight in fine manners? Their charm cannot be predicted or overstated. ‘T is perpetual promise of more than can be fulfilled. It is music and sculpture and picture to many who do not pretend to appreciation of those arts. It is even true that grace is more beautiful than beauty. Yet how…

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Complete Works of RWE | VIII - Letters and Social Aims

Immortality

ByRalph Waldo Emerson December 16, 2004

IN the year 626 of our era, when Edwin, the Anglo-Saxon king, was deliberating on receiving the Christian missionaries, one of his nobles said to him : "The present life of man, O king, compared with that space of time beyond, of which we have no certainty, reminds me of one of your winter feasts,…

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Complete Works of RWE | VIII - Letters and Social Aims

Greatness

ByRalph Waldo Emerson December 16, 2004

THERE is a prize which we are all aiming at, and the more power and goodness we have, so much more the energy of that aim. Every human being has a right to it, and in the pursuit we do not stand in each other's way. For it has a long scale of degrees, a…

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Complete Works of RWE | VIII - Letters and Social Aims

Inspiration

ByRalph Waldo Emerson December 16, 2004

IT was Watt who told King George III. that he deal in an article of which kings were said to be fond, Power. 'T is certain that the one thing we wish to know is, where power is to be bought. But we want a finer kind than that of commerce; and every reasonable man…

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Complete Works of RWE | VIII - Letters and Social Aims

Persian Poetry

ByRalph Waldo Emerson December 16, 2004

To Baron von Hammer. Purgstall, who died in Vienna in 1856, we owe our best knowledge of the Persians. He has translated into German, besides the "Divan" of Hafiz, specimens of two hundred poets, who wrote during a period of five and a half centuries, from A. D. 1050 to 1600. The seven masters of…

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Complete Works of RWE | VIII - Letters and Social Aims

Progress of Culture

ByRalph Waldo Emerson December 16, 2004

Address Read Before The Phi Beta Kappa Society At Cambridge, JULY 18, 1867. WE meet to-day under happy omens to our ancient society, to the commonwealth of letters, to the country, and to mankind. No good citizen but shares the wonderful prosperity of the Federal Union. The heart still beats with the public pulse of…

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Complete Works of RWE | VIII - Letters and Social Aims

Quotation and Originality

ByRalph Waldo Emerson December 16, 2004

WHOEVER looks at the insect world, at flies, aphides, gnats, and innumerable parasites, and even at the infant mammals, must have remarked the extreme content they take in suction, which constitutes the main business of their life. If we go into a library or news-room, we see the same function on a higher plane, performed…

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Complete Works of RWE | VIII - Letters and Social Aims

Eloquence

ByRalph Waldo Emerson December 16, 2004

ELOQUENCE I DO not know any kind of history, except the event of a battle, to which people listen with more interest than to any anecdote of eloquence ; and the wise think it better than a battle. It is a triumph of pure power, and it has a beautiful and prodigious surprise in it….

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Complete Works of RWE | VIII - Letters and Social Aims

The Comic

ByRalph Waldo Emerson December 16, 2004

A TASTE for fun is all but universal in our species, which is the only joker in nature. The rocks, the plants, the beasts, the birds, neither do anything ridiculous, nor betray a perception of anything absurd done in their presence. And as the lower nature does not jest, neither does the highest. The Reason…

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Complete Works of RWE | VIII - Letters and Social Aims

Resources

ByRalph Waldo Emerson December 16, 2004

MEN are made up of potences. We are magnets in an iron globe. We have keys to all doors. We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to…

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  • Home
  • Complete Works
    • Complete Works
      • I – Nature, Addresses & Lectures
        • Nature: Introduction
        • Chapter I. Nature
        • Chapter II. Commodity
        • Chapter III. Beauty
        • Chapter IV. Language
        • Chapter V. Discipline
        • Chapter VI. Idealism
        • Chapter VII. Spirit
        • Chapter VIII Books
        • Chapter VIII. Prospects
        • The American Scholar
        • Divinity School Address
        • Literary Ethics
        • The Method of Nature
        • Introductory Lecture on the Times
        • The Conservative
        • The Transcendentalist
        • The Young American
        • IX The Over-Soul
      • II – Essays I
        • I History
        • II Self-Reliance
        • III Compensation
        • IV Spiritual Laws
        • V Love
        • VI Friendship
        • VII Prudence
        • VIII Heroism
        • X Circles
        • 11. Intellect
        • 12. Art
      • Vol VII – Society and Solitude (1870)
        • Chapter VI Farming
        • Chapter VII Works and Days
        • Chapter VIII Books
        • Chapter IX Clubs
        • Chapter X Courage
        • Chapter XI Success
        • Chapter XII Old Age
        • Chapter I Society and Solitude
        • Chapter II Civilization
        • Chapter IV Eloquence
        • Chapter V Domestic Life
      • III – Essays II
        • I The Poet
        • II Experience
        • III Character
        • IV Manners
        • V Gifts
        • VIII Nominalist and Realist
        • IX New England Reformers
        • VII Politics
        • VI Nature
      • IV – Representative Men
        • Plato; or, the Philosopher
        • Swedenborg; or, the Mystic
        • Uses of Great Men
        • Montaigne; or, the Skeptic
        • Shakspeare; or, the Poet
        • Napoleon; or, the Man of the World
        • Goethe; or, the Writer
      • IX – Poems
      • VIII – Letters and Social Aims
        • Social Aims
        • Poetry and Imagination
        • Eloquence
        • Resources
        • The Comic
        • Quotation and Originality
        • Progress of Culture
        • Persian Poetry
        • Inspiration
      • XII – Natural History of the Intellect
        • Art and Criticism
        • The Natural History of Intellect
        • The Celebration of Intellect
        • Country Life
        • Concord Walks
        • Boston
        • Michael Angelo
        • Milton
      • X – Lectures and Biographical Sketches
        • Demonology
        • Aristocracy
        • Perpetual Forces
        • Education
        • The Superlative
        • The Sovereignty of Ethics
        • The Preacher
        • The Man of Letters
        • Plutarch
        • The Scholar
        • Life and Letters in New England
        • Ezra Ripley, D. D.
        • Chardon Street Convention
        • Mary Moody Emerson
        • Samuel Hoar
        • Henry David Thoreau (Eulogy)
        • Carlyle
        • George L. Stearns
      • XI – Miscellanies
        • I – XV
          • I The Lord’s Supper
          • III Letter to President Van Buren
          • V War
          • II Historical Discourse at Concord
          • VI The Fugitive Slave Law
          • VIII The Assault Upon Mr. Sumner
          • IX Speech on Affairs in Kansas
          • X John Brown–Speech at Boston
          • XI John Brown–Speech at Salem
          • XII Theodore Parker
          • XIII American Civilization
          • XIV The Emancipation Proclamation
          • XV Abraham Lincoln
        • XV1 – XXX
          • XVI Harvard Commeroration Speech
          • XVII Dedication of the Soldiers’ Monument in Concord
          • XVIII Editors’ Address
          • XX Woman
          • VII – Society and Solitude
          • XIX Address to Kossuth
          • XXI Consecration of Sleepy Hollow Cemetary
          • XXII Robert Burns
          • XXIV Humboldt
          • XXIII Shakespeare
          • XXVI Speech at Banquet in Honor of Chinese Embassy
          • XXIX Address at Opening of Concord Free Public Library
          • XXX The Fortune of the Republic
      • VI – Conduct of Life
        • I Fate
        • II Power
        • III Wealth
        • IV Culture
        • V Behavior
        • IX Illusions
        • VII Considerations by the Way
        • VIII Beauty
        • VI Worship
      • V – English Traits
        • Chapter I First Visit to England
        • Chapter II Voyage to England
        • Chapter III Land
        • Chapter IV Race
        • Chapter V Ability
        • Chapter VI Manners
        • Chapter VII Truth
        • Chapter VIII Character
        • Chapter IX Cockayne
        • Chapter X Wealth
        • Chapter XIII Religion
        • Chapter XI Aristocracy
        • Chapter XII Universities
        • Chapter XIV Literature
    • Concordance
    • Journals I – X
    • RWE Works Blog
  • Biography
    • Bibliography
    • Old Friends
    • Emerson Glossary
    • The Conscious Order
  • Time Line
  • Articles
  • Resources
    • Concordance
    • Search RWE.org
    • How To Use RWE.org
    • RWE Society Archives
    • RWE Advisor
      • Webmaster/Web Designer
      • General Advisor
  • Contact us
  • RWE Book Store