As you have discovered from his writings, Ralph Waldo Emerson was an man of profound thought and incisive observation. His calls to live simply and understand ourselves through the natural world around us have resonance even in, perhaps especially in, today's society.
Your task is to choose one of the following Emerson quotes and explain what you believe it means. You may wish to include examples from your own life, or what you know about transcendentalism, to help illustrate your point. Please use no more than three sentences. You must post your response by the end of class.
Please write the number of the quote in your response so I know which one you picked.This assignment is worth one homework grade.
1. "A man in debt is so far a slave."
2. “Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”
3. "Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better."
4. “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
5. “Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
6. “It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
7. “I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”
8. “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”
9. “Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.”
10. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statemen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do"
11. "Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare."
12. "Society is a wave. The wave moves forward, but the water of which it is composed does not."
2. The quote means that everyday has its own challenges and its own worries. You should leave those worries with that day and not bring them in the next day. Like for school, you should finish your homework the day before and not leave it for the morning before it is due.
ReplyDelete1. This quote basically states that when one man is in debt to another, the man whom is in debt is a slave to the other. The other man has complete control over the others actions and resources until the debt is repaid. This reminds me of my uncle who used to spend a lot of time with my family, however he eventually developed great debt and now has to slave away at work to keep up on his payments seven days a week.
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ReplyDeleteThis quote means that people should not dwell on the past, especially their mistakes, but to move forward and embrace the new day to come. This relates to me because whenever I have a bad day I push it aside, knowing I did what I could, and hope the next will be better.
Quote #3
ReplyDeleteThis quote portrays the need in life for confidence and to not think too hard about your actions. Your asctions, regardless of the outcome, will teach you a lesson about life, so it is importasnt to be confident in your actions. After all, you only live once, so why waste time thinking your decisions over.
7. This quote demonstrates how even if a person does not remember exactly what they have read through out his or her life it still stays with them and builds that persons character. The quote compares this to not remembering meals but how the food a person eats still makes up who that person is. This is a good comparison and I agree, I feel the same way about the books I have read even though I can't always remember every part of the book the knowledge gained from it sticks with me.
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ReplyDeleteI feel that this quote relates to me, and most students in high school, because it is difficult to learn who you are, and once that is accomplished, express it. This quote explains how the author feels that people should experiment to find their true selves and that it is necessary to take risks in life to enjoy it in the best possible ways.
-G.
12. Humans are given finite life spans, however we are given the ability to teach our children how to live in society. These teachings passed on from generation to generation, are the ideas, beliefs, and customs that make up society, in similar fashion to how energy makes up a wave. In turn, society eventually moves past every individual, just like a wave moves past any individual drop of water in the ocean, while the wave keeps going.
ReplyDelete4.) I have a tendency to do things much slower than others, making the debate over past, present, and future more pertinent to me. Time is divided arbitrarily into these three, but Emerson and I agree that a person is really just the present state of his/her story, only incriminated or complemented by the past so far as the past has affected the present. Emerson also implies that internal matters--meaning, I assume, spiritual or mental--are the only important aspect of the present.
ReplyDelete4. I believe that this quote is saying that whatever our past is and whatever our future is, is nothing compared to who we are. Our future and past do not define us, but rather what is within us. For example, I don't want to be known for my past and mistakes or who I will become but instead who I am presently today.
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ReplyDeleteThis quote relates to me because, i feel that you should leave the past behind and don't worry about the future, live in the present because it might affect you in a way that may affect the enjoyment in your life and in the present.
12. This quote shows the transcendentalist belief of unity and accordance in a society, and that people should be generous. It expresses the idea that people need to advance together to reach a common goal like a wave, rather than working as egotists like the water within. In fact this belief is shown by the coordination shown by successful sports teams and in the special forces.
ReplyDelete4, This quote from Emerson shows his transcendentalist views of self-reliance in which a person must believe in themselves and that they are defined by themselves and not their situation or rank. Transcendentalism is all about the individual and this quote exemplifies transcendentalism as a whole. This relates to sports in which a person or a team is judged by how they play in their current season, not by how well they did in the past.
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ReplyDeleteThis quote is saying that everybody makes mistakes in life and they learn from them the same way people learn from experiments. Therefore, we cannot be too timid about our actions because we will always learn from them if they do not work out the way we had wanted. This quote relates to me because i have made some mistakes in life which i have learned from and were beneficial to me, such as learning to stop procrastinating on essays.
9) This quote delineates the fact that one should treasure all the leisure time they have and use it wisely since that time will never come back. When I have free time, I always use it to accomplish something useful and make the most out of it by doing something that I enjoy rather than wasting time and sleeping or doing other unproductive activities. Emerson is saying that when time has passed, it can not be returned and it is important to live life to the fullest rather than waste away time that will be gone forever.
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