

"The Poet" by Ralph Waldo Emerson - Part I
A moody child and wildly wise
Pursued the game with joyful eyes,
Which chose, like meteors, their way,
And rived the dark with private ray:
They overleapt the horizon’s edge,
Searched with Apollo’s privilege;
Through man, and woman, and sea, and star,
Saw the dance of nature forward far;
Through worlds, and races, and terms, and times,
Saw musical order, and pairing rhymes. Olympian bards who sung

Divine ideas below,
Which always find us young,
And always keep us


Letters Upon the Aesthetic Education of Man - XXII
Letter XXVI I HAVE shown in the previous letters that it is only the æsthetic disposition of the soul that gives birth to liberty, it cannot therefore be derived from liberty nor have a moral origin. It must be a gift of nature, the favour of chance alone can break the bonds of the physical state and bring the savage to duty. The germ of the beautiful will find an equal difficulty in developing itself in countries where a severe nature forbids man to enjoy himself, and in tho


When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer
WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars


Letters Upon the Aesthetic Education of Man - Part XV
Letter XIX
TWO principal and different states of passive and active capacity of being determined can be distinguished in man; in like manner two states of passive and active determination. The explanation of this proposition leads us most readily to our end. The condition of the state of man before destination or direction is given him by the impressions of the senses is an unlimited capacity of being determined. The infinite of time and space is given to his imagination fo


Letters Upon the Aesthetic Education of Man - Part XII
Letter XVI FROM the antagonism of the two impulsions, and from the association of two opposite principles, we have seen beauty to result, of which the highest ideal must therefore be sought in the most perfect union and equilibrium possible of the reality and of the form. But this equilibrium remains always an idea that reality can never completely reach. In reality, there will always remain a preponderance of one of these elements over the other, and the highest point to whi


Tao Te Ching - Part IX (Finale)
Chapter 75 The people's hunger
Is due to the excess of their ruler's taxation
So they starve
The people's difficulty in being governed
Is due to the meddling of their ruler
So they are difficult to govern
The people's disregard for death
Is due to the glut in their ruler's pursuit of life
So they disregard death
Therefore those who do not strive for living
Are better than those who value living Chapter 76 While alive, the body is soft and pliant
When dead, it is ha


Tao Te Ching - Part VIII
Chapter 67 Everyone in the world calls my Tao great
As if it is beyond compare
It is only because of its greatness
That it seems beyond compare
If it can be compared
It would already be insignificant long ago! I have three treasures
I hold on to them and protect them
The first is called compassion
The second is called conservation
The third is called not daring to be ahead in the world
Compassionate, thus able to have courage
Conserving, thus able to reach widely


Tao Te Ching - Part VII
Chapter 57 Govern a country with upright integrity
Deploy the military with surprise tactics
Take the world with non-interference
How do I know this is so?
With the following: When there are many restrictions in the world
The people become more impoverished
When people have many sharp weapons
The country becomes more chaotic
When people have many clever tricks
More strange things occur
The more laws are posted
The more robbers and thieves there are Therefore the sa


Tao Te Ching - Part VI
Chapter 48 Pursue knowledge, daily gain
Pursue Tao, daily loss Loss and more loss
Until one reaches unattached action
With unattached action, there is nothing one cannot do Take the world by constantly applying non-interference
The one who interferes is not qualified to take the world. Chapter 49 The sages have no constant mind
They take the mind of the people as their mind
Those who are good, I am good to them
Those who are not good, I am also good to them
Thus the v


Tao Te Ching - Part IV
Chapter 28 Know the masculine, hold to the feminine
Be the watercourse of the world
Being the watercourse of the world
The eternal virtue does not depart
Return to the state of the infant
Know the white, hold to the black
Be the standard of the world
Being the standard of the world
The eternal virtue does not deviate
Return to the state of the boundless
Know the honor, hold to the humility
Be the valley of the world
Being the valley of the world
The eternal virtu