Customer Reviews

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays, Lectures and Poems

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I've had to read parts of this book for various classes, and read the rest on my own. Whether he's talking about his day, or the future, Emerson is right on the mark for many things, from the need to be self-reliant to society's views on religion. Of course, there are some things I don't agree with, as you'll also find...but there are just so many quotable lines here, which are incredibly thought-provoking and inspirational. If you haven't read this, please do!

I discovered Emerson at age 34, and it was like coming home. I have always been, I guess, a natural "transcendentalist". In other words, I instinctively and intuitively fell into a transcendentalist mindset and way of thinking without ever having read any. So I've read Thoreau and Annie Dillard and frankly can't stand either of them. I find them a little strained. Emerson, to me at least, is a different story. He writes like a god. He writes with authority, poetry and insight. He, to me, is worlds apart from someone like Dillard...hard to say exactly how. I just know that his writing is brilliant, brilliant...free, courageous, honest. A big part of it for me is his passionate and deep understanding of God coupled with his rejection of "corpse-cold" religion. If you are a seeker, if you have an open mind, you will find few better than this.

The book is a little small in size, but, it is enjoyable to read.
It takes sometimes reading the material twice to digest the information and taking it in, to process the writing. It is a classic book and feel it would benefit any and all that are interesting in nature and "god in nature." Better to be in the mood to read these writings rather than forcing one's self to read it when not in the right frame of mind to be receive the writing.

Be open to the the spiritual side of nature and beauty it beholds for our everyday healing of the rat race life we live.

Be of good cheer and kindness, and know we go back into the one mind of the universe of nature and we move to the next dimension.

God is within all of us. We are part of nature.

Emerson affirms the individual and self-reliant aspects of life.
Early in life, Emerson lost his father and 3 year old sister Mary Caroline. The author demonstrated the power of expression in translating truth to both verse and music. Some famous quotes from the book are as follows:

- The perfect friendship requires a rare nature..
- The fountains of my hidden life are through thy friendship fair.
- Man (person ) is all symmetry.
- Great geniuses have the shortest biographies.
i.e. Plato had no biography per se.

A strength of this work is that the author presents classic
sayings/quotations of Emerson in the original literary mode.
It will be appreciated by literature enthusiasts everywhere.

I bought this thinking it would be a good way to get to know the author through his short works but I guess I need to be an english major or in an English composition class 'cause I didn't get past a few pages. I'm still trying tho.

Excellent writer, good ideas, but verbose to the extreme. I would enjoy Emerson if his flowery dialogues were to the point. Instead he endlessly adds so much snow to fill fill up a chapter that some of his brilliant thoughts are dulled. In my opinion most of the chapters could have been reduced to a page or two. If you like long conversations with people who endlessly drone on to make their point; if you enjoy long winded discussions, Emerson will entertain you.

Dr. Raymond DuRussel

histories, biographies, criticism, singular people like woodmen are the heroes through the ages; a booh making us stronger.