The American Scholar

American Scholar An Oration

delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, August 31, 1837 loc: 1078

The old fable covers a doctrine ever new and sublime; that there is One Man, — present to all particular men only partially, or through one faculty; and that you must take the whole society to find the whole man. loc: 1099
Note: Could this be what E O Wilson discusses inThe Social Conquest of Earth? Edit

The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters, — a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man. loc: 1105

Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things. The planter, who is Man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. loc: 1107

In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men’s thinking. loc: 1111

Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will not fit this. loc: 1154

The sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude, slow to open to the incursions of Reason, having once so opened, having once received this book, stands upon it, and makes an outcry, if it is disparaged. Colleges are built on it. Books are written on it by thinkers, not by Man Thinking; by men of talent, that is, who start wrong, who set out from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of principles. Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books. loc: 1159

Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. loc: 1164

Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. loc: 1167

They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book, than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. loc: 1168

The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul. This every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although, in almost all men, obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth; and utters truth, or creates. In this action, it is genius; loc: 1169

The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. This is good, say they, — let us hold by this. They pin me down. They look backward and not forward. loc: 1172

Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. Books are for the scholar’s idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men’s transcripts of their readings. loc: 1181

Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it, he is not yet man. Without it, thought can never ripen into truth. Whilst the world hangs before the eye as a cloud of beauty, we cannot even see its beauty. Inaction is cowardice, but there can be no scholar without the heroic mind. loc: 1214

The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action. loc: 1216

If it were only for a vocabulary, the scholar would be covetous of action. Life is our dictionary. Years are well spent in country labors; in town, — in the insight into trades and manufactures; in frank intercourse with many men and women; in science; in art; to the one end of mastering in all their facts a language by which to illustrate and embody our perceptions. loc: 1245

But the final value of action, like that of books, and better than books, is, that it is a resource. loc: 1251

The mind now thinks; now acts; and each fit reproduces the other. When the artist has exhausted his materials, when the fancy no longer paints, when thoughts are no longer apprehended, and books are a weariness, — he has always the resource to live loc: 1255

Character is higher than intellect. Thinking is the function. Living is the functionary. loc: 1257

A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think. loc: 1258

The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. loc: 1271

He is to find consolation in exercising the highest functions of human nature. He is one, who raises himself from private considerations, and breathes and lives on public and illustrious thoughts. He is the world’s eye. He is the world’s heart. loc: 1281

These being his functions, it becomes him to feel all confidence in himself, and to defer never to the popular cry. loc: 1287

In silence, in steadiness, in severe abstraction, let him hold by himself; add observation to observation, patient of neglect, patient of reproach; and bide his own time, — happy enough, if he can satisfy himself alone, that this day he has seen something truly. loc: 1291

In self-trust, all the virtues are comprehended. Free should the scholar be, — free and brave. loc: 1301

I believe man has been wronged; he has wronged himself. He has almost lost the light, that can lead him back to his prerogatives. loc: 1322

Men in history, men in the world of to-day are bugs, are spawn, and are called ‘the mass’ and ‘the herd.’ In a century, in a millennium, one or two men; that is to say, — one or two approximations to the right state of every man. All the rest behold in the hero or the poet their own green and crude being, — ripened; loc: 1324
Note: Is Emerson talking the Overman? Edit

For a man, rightly viewed, comprehendeth the particular natures of all men. Each philosopher, each bard, each actor, has only done for me, as by a delegate, what one day I can do for myself. loc: 1338

show me the ultimate reason of these matters; show me the sublime presence of the highest spiritual cause lurking, as always it does lurk, in these suburbs and extremities of nature; let me see every trifle bristling with the polarity that ranges it instantly on an eternal law; loc: 1374

the world lies no longer a dull miscellany and lumber-room, but has form and order; there is no trifle; there is no puzzle; but one design unites and animates the farthest pinnacle and the lowest trench. loc: 1376
Note: The world in a grain of sand; eternity in an hour Edit

If there be one lesson more than another, which should pierce his ear, it is, The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all, it is for you to dare all. loc: 1396

Young men of the fairest promise, who begin life upon our shores, inflated by the mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of God, find the earth below not in unison with these, — but are hindered from action by the disgust which the principles on which business is managed inspire, and turn drudges, or die of disgust, loc: 1402
Note: I certainly felt this at 19 and 20 or so. Why am I so cynical about it now? Edit

if the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him. loc: 1405

We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds. loc: 1411