Uses of Great Men

Uses of Great Men PDF

Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2017-04-14

Total Pages: 36

ISBN-13: 9781545386170

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Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 - April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States. Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of transcendentalism in his 1836 essay "Nature." Following this work, he gave a speech entitled "The American Scholar" in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. considered to be America's "intellectual Declaration of Independence." Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first and then revised them for print. His first two collections of essays, Essays: First Series (1841) and Essays: Second Series (1844), represent the core of his thinking. They include the well-known essays "Self-Reliance," "The Over-Soul," "Circles," "The Poet" and "Experience." Together with "Nature," these essays made the decade from the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s Emerson's most fertile period. Emerson wrote on a number of subjects, never espousing fixed philosophical tenets, but developing certain ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for humankind to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Emerson's "nature" was more philosophical than naturalistic: "Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul." Emerson is one of several figures who "took a more pantheist or pandeist approach by rejecting views of God as separate from the world." He remains among the linchpins of the American romantic movement, and his work has greatly influenced the thinkers, writers and poets that followed him. When asked to sum up his work, he said his central doctrine was "the infinitude of the private man." Emerson is also well known as a mentor and friend of Henry David Thoreau, a fellow transcendentalist. Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 25, 1803, a son of Ruth Haskins and the Rev. William Emerson, a Unitarian minister. He was named after his mother's brother Ralph and his father's great-grandmother Rebecca Waldo. Ralph Waldo was the second of five sons who survived into adulthood; the others were William, Edward, Robert Bulkeley, and Charles. Three other children-Phebe, John Clarke, and Mary Caroline-died in childhood. Emerson was entirely of English ancestry, and his family had been in New England since the early colonial period.

Secrets of the Mind

Secrets of the Mind PDF

Author: Sam Torode

Publisher:

Published: 2020-08-31

Total Pages: 110

ISBN-13:

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Keys to Greater Insight, Creativity, and Achievement To "transcend" means to go beyond. What if you could transcend your individual limitations, link with the minds of others--even the mind of the universe itself--and access greater knowledge, wisdom, and creativity? You can. Secrets of the Mind reveals Ralph Waldo Emerson's keys for accessing the expansive powers of the "one mind." The sequel to Living from the Soul, this book rephrases and remixes Emerson's writings on the principles and powers of thought. It concludes with practical advice on work, money, and success. Transcendentalism is not a relic of interest only to academics. As Sam Torode writes in the foreword, "Emerson's philosophy has the power to change the way you view the world and your place in it. It might even change your life." Here are some of the ideas explored in this book: There is one mind common to all humanity. The ancestor of every act is a thought. Your own mind is your greatest teacher. Thoughts become things. As children of the universe, we are all born creators. We each possess hidden gifts waiting to be expressed. Inspiration is the fuel of constructive thought and action. Wealth is mental and moral. Successful people follow the law of cause and effect. Power is magnified by concentration.