Can anyone summarize this in words I can understand? Self-Reliance By Ralph Waldo Emerson?
918104
One of the most profound truths of all time...I was so impressed by this essay 30 yrs. ago I copied it word for word...the essence in my opinion is found in his opening lines..."Every man is his own star"   Find the source of life and light within your own self.  Never be other than you truly are.  Speak the simple truth...which you cannot do until you make the hardest  journey...the one that goes to the depths of your soul.  This essay goes hand in hand with " Know yourself " and "To thine own self be true." Rely on your own instincts for self-preservation. Do no harm.  Never covet...expect only what is your own to come to you.  Live your own life...other people have opinions but no one else walks in your shoes.  Your life pathway is uniquely your own.  Integrity of mind is another way of saying wholeness and wellness.  The worst lie is the lie to your self.  The hardest work is to live without deception.  The past is only valuable for the lessons learned so don't get lost looking over your shoulder at where you have been.  Keep your eyes focused on where you are going.  Have faith that what you really need will be available to you when the need actually arrives.  Never lose hope...it is stronger than experience.  Live life!!!
860380
Umm i read that book last year.... but maybe this can help \n\nWilliam Golding presented numerous themes and basic ideas that give the reader something to think about. One of the most basic and obvious themes is that society holds everyone together, and without these conditions, our ideals, values, and the basics of right and wrong are lost. Without society's rigid rules, anarchy and savagery can come to light.\n\nGolding is also showing that morals come directly from our surroundings, and if there is no civilization around us, we will lose these values.\n\nOther secondary themes include the following:\n\nPeople will abuse power when it's not earned. \n*When given a chance, people often single out another to degrade to improve their own security. \n*You can only cover up inner savagery so long before it breaks out, given the right situation. \n*It's better to examine the consequences of a decision before you make it than to discover them afterward. \n*The fear of the unknown can be a powerful force, which can turn you to either insight or hysteria. \n\n\nummm this is yahoo india, they read that book in india?
76608
If...by Rudyard Kipling\nIf you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on"; If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run - Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
445166
I can't write a paragraph on it for you--if you want to know the source given for the quote:\n\nAll health is better than wealth.\n\n--from a letter written by Sir Walter Scott, 18th-19th century Scottish novelist
491771
by Martin Luther King\n"Whenever this issue [compensatory treatment] is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree, but should ask for nothing more."\n\nthat is what he said the white man will say. \n\n "On the surface, this appears reasonable, but is not realistic. For it is obvious that if a man enters the starting line of a race three hundred years after another man, the second would have to perform some incredible feat in order to catch up." \n"A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for him, to equip him to compete on a just and equal basis." \n"... for 15 centuries the Negro was enslaved and robbed of any wages — potential accrued wealth which would have been the legacy of his descendants. All of America's wealth today could not adequately compensate its Negroes for his centuries of exploitation and humiliation. \n\nHe was a leader how did he fail his people. The real question is what is whites excuse not to be successful. When they had 400 years of benefiting for slavery. Somethings black never had, some still do get that benefit. Others wasn't even allowed to vote until 1965.
211170
I believe she's alluding to the importance of self-introspection. Ralph Waldo Emerson writes some great stuff about this concept(read his "The American Scholar"). Basically, he says you will never have the chance to know anything like you can know yourself. \n\nTherefore, it is most worthwhile to know yourself. So many things we do that are self-destructive are because we choose to ignore the qualities about ourselves that we dislike. So go  out and explore life but never put anything anyone says or writes before what you have found through self-examination and your observations.\n\nAs a parent, one can observe a child's behavior closely but one can never know the internals of the mind like the child can as he/she grows and explores.
284902
Here's the quote:  "If a man empties his purse into his head no one can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."\n\nIf you look at the link below, you'll see that this was attributed to Benjamin Franklin in a book of quotations, but that it is unverified.
628974
Word Of Advice, And Seriously If You Don't Take This On Board Like Many humans You Will Find Yourself gettig Lost In A Constrcution Of Unreality\n\nIm Guessing You Daydream, Think And Have Many Thoughts Come Into Your Head Alot, When You Sit And Detach Yourself From Reality\n\nWell Firslt You Need To Regain Your Cerebral Control Agin, And Undersatnd That Everything ARound You Is For You To Expereince And The World Is Large And Adventurious, The Only Thing That Stops People Is That The Goverment Has Created A World Were Everything Is Built Upon Socity And Order, You Have No Money Your Out Of Socitey, You Have Money Your Back In And You Live The Dream World, Well To Undersatnd You Must Find Things That you Wish To Expalnd On, \n\nIf You Have Little Money\n\nTry Reading Self Teach Books\nHanging Out At The Park And Finding New Freinds\nBuilding Confidence With Your Bodylanguage\nthe List Goes On\n\nMost Impotantaly Don't Goe Inside Your Head, Only Do This If You Wish To Develop A Skill And Visiualise A Postive Outcome...Any Negative Thoughts, Or Sayings Will Be Mirrored Onto Your Body And Hae Long Term Negatice Effects\n\nBy The Way Many Will Tell You That You Need To Find God, What This Really Means Is That All Your Fears, Anxietys And Stress Would Be Placed Upon A Non Existent Figure, Although this May Work In The Short Term, The Relapse Of This Is Very Dangerours, Many People Who Have Gone Into Relgion To Beat There Own Thoughts And Problems Wold Tell You That There Problems Have'nt Gone Away But Been Buried Deep Away And That God Looks After Them...Don't Fall In This Trap - As You Get Older The Brain Will Kill Away The New Brain Cells And Revive The Old Ones (Which You Buried Long Ago - Some Call This A Mid Life Crisis Others A Relapse Or The Cortex)\n\nIf You Want Help I Can Help. But Remember Im Not A TRained Practicnair\n\nAlien Boy
867140
Perhaps from D.H. Lawrence's "Studies in Classic American Literature", published in 1923. In Chapter 10, "Herman Melville's Typee and Omoo," Lawrence writes (see the 8th paragaph for your citation):\n\n"Look at Melville's eighty long years of writhing. And to the end he writhed on the ideal pin.\n\nFrom the 'perfect woman lover' he passed on to the 'perfect friend'. He looked and looked for the perfect man friend.\n\nCouldn't find him.\n\nMarriage was a ghastly disillusion to him, because he looked for perfect marriage.\n\nFriendship never even made a real start in him - save perhaps his half-sentimental love for Jack Chase, in White Jacket.\n\nYet to the end he pined for this: a perfect relationship; perfect mating; perfect mutual understanding. A perfect friend.\n\nRight to the end he could never accept the fact that perfect relationships cannot be. Each soul is alone, and the aloneness of each soul is a double barrier to perfect relationship between two beings.\n\nEach soul should be alone. And in the end the desire for a 'perfect relationship' is just a vicious, unmanly craving. 'Tous nos malheurs viennent de ne pouvoir etre seuls.'\n\nMelville, however, refused to draw his conclusion. Life was wrong, he said. He refused Life. But he stuck to his ideal of perfect relationship, possible perfect love. The world ought to be a harmonious loving place. And it can't be. So life itself is wrong.\n\nIt is silly arguing. Because, after all, only temporary man sets up the 'oughts'.\n\nThe world ought not to be a harmonious loving place. It  ought to be a place of fierce discord and intermittent harmonies: which it is.\n\nLove ought not to be perfect. It ought to have perfect moments, and wildenesses of thorn bushes - which it has.\n\nA 'perfect' relationship ought not to be possible. Every relationship should have its absolute limits, its absolute reserves, essential to the singleness of the soul in each person. A truly perfect relationship is one in which each party leaves great tracts unknown in the other party.\n\nNo two persons can meet at more than a few points, consciously. If two people can just be together fairly often, so that the presence of each is a sort of balance to the other, that is the basis of perfect relationship. There must be true separatenesses as well.\n\nMelville was, at the core, a mystic and an idealist.\n\nPerhaps, so am I.\n\nAnd he stuck to his ideal guns.\n\nI abandon mine.\n\nHe was a mystic who raved because the old ideal guns shot havoc. The guns of the 'noble spirit'. Of 'ideal love'.\n\nI say, let the old guns rot.\n\nGet new ones, and shoot straight."
463893
Short answer: He made people have an appreciation for nature\n\nThe Importance of Self-Reliance\nFour years before Thoreau embarked on his Walden project, his great teacher and role model Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote an enormously influential essay entitled “Self-Reliance.” It can be seen as a statement of the philosophical ideals that Thoreau’s experiment is meant to put into practice. Certainly self-reliance is economic and social in Walden Pond: it is the principle that in matters of financial and interpersonal relations, independence is more valuable than neediness. Thus Thoreau dwells on the contentment of his solitude, on his finding entertainment in the laugh of the loon and the march of the ants rather than in balls, marketplaces, or salons. He does not disdain human companionship; in fact he values it highly when it comes on his own terms, as when his philosopher or poet friends come to call. He simply refuses to need human society. Similarly, in economic affairs he is almost obsessed with the idea that he can support himself through his own labor, producing more than he consumes, and working to produce a profit. Thoreau does not simply report on the results of his accounting, but gives us a detailed list of expenditures and income. How much money he spent on salt from 1845 to 1847 may seem trivial, but for him it is not. Rather it is proof that, when everything is added up, he is a giver rather than a taker in the economic game of life. \nhttp://www.sparknotes.com/lit/walden/themes.html\n\nOther sites:\nhttp://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/barrons/walden.asp\nhttp://www.bookrags.com/notes/wal/
56142
It's a great book, one which inspired the American Revolution (repudiated the Divine right of kings to rule without consent of the governed).\n\nAlso, to do good with all one's wisdom and strength is the highest religion.  And the doctrine of a savior is unjust: no honest man can accept another's dying for him.\n\nThese were (and are) revolutionary concepts which helped change the history of our early republic.
768673
You can read it. Here's the link. http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil.html\nIf you read the complete essay, it'll be more detailed than any summary.
332316
I find A Psalm of Life to be an extremely  powerful poem. There are many\nof us on this earth that do not understand that the soul is realy them\nand not their body. We are all a part of a larger creative intelligence.\nOur souls are what connects us to this divine, creative intelligence.\nEach of us comes with a purpose to fulfill and expand that creative\ninteligence on the physical plain. As children we are more connected to\nour sould purpose. However as we grow older we allow the "inculturation"\nof our society to move us away form our souls purpose and more toward\nour physical self. Yet our ony purpose is to create a world that is so\npure that that soul can manifest itself without the illusion of our\nphysical form.  The soul never dies.\n\nWe must all remember tis truth -\n    "Dust thou art, to dust returnest,\n     Was not spoken of the soul."\n\n\nWhen he writes that the soul is dead that slumbers, he means that if your soul is dormant or asleep it may as well be dead because you're not using it,\nWhen great men leave footprints in the sands of time, he means that they leave footprints in the sand that stand the test of time, they are remembered - they make a difference!\nCattle are the conformists - they do not think for themselves, society thinks for them, and they are all the same.\n\nThis is a very inspirational poem. The concept of living only in the present is a very difficult thing for me, as the regrets of the past and hopes of the future can be very troublesome and misleading at times. This brings out feelings of...almost like confidence. Strength and belief in oneself. The thought he expresses in this, one how to live through each day, is one I firmly sympathize with and believe in.\nThe meaning of this is very clear. Just live. Don't be hindered by the fear of oncoming, certain death, or whatever mistakes you may've made before, live by the second and only plan ahead that far. The is no concrete point in life, nothing is sure and steady, so don't live like it is going to be that way.\nThis has a very punctual, powerful rhythm. It works great for this, as the theme and message of it is a very strong, very passionate one. The wording, flow, everything in this goes perfectly hand in hand. I don't think it could've been written any better.\nThis is an excellent write, one I'm also going to save. I find it to be very uplifting, very inspirational.
1062834
From Shakespeare:\n\nA thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.\n\nBeggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks, but I thank you; and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny.
666548
Friends and Fellow-Citizens:\n\nCalled upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our country, I avail myself of the presence of that portion of my fellow-citizens which is here assembled to express my grateful thanks for the favor with which they have been pleased to look toward me, to declare a sincere consciousness that the task is above my talents, and that I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire. A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye--when I contemplate these transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness, and the hopes of this beloved country committed to the issue, and the auspices of this day, I shrink from the contemplation, and humble myself before the magnitude of the undertaking. Utterly, indeed, should I despair did not the presence of many whom I here see remind me that in the other high authorities provided by our Constitution I shall find resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal on which to rely under all difficulties. To you, then, gentlemen, who are charged with the sovereign functions of legislation, and to those associated with you, I look with encouragement for that guidance and support which may enable us to steer with safety the vessel in which we are all embarked amidst the conflicting elements of a troubled world.\n\nDuring the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long- lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preser
1177351
Quotation\n***********\n"Look how we live, an’ wheer we live, an’ in what numbers, an’ by what chances, an’ wi’ what sameness; and look how the mills is awlus a-goin’, and how they never works us no nigher to onny distant object-‘ceptin awlus Death. Look how you considers of us, and writes of us, and talks of us, and goes up wi’ your deputations to Secretaries o’ State ‘bout us, and how yo are awlus right, and how we are awlus wrong, and never had’n no reason in us sin ever we were born. Look how this ha’ growen an’ growen sir, bigger an’ bigger, broader an’ broader, harder an’ harder, fro year to year, fro generation unto generation. Who can look on’t sir, and fairly tell a man ‘tis not a muddle?"\n********************************************************\nExplanation of quotation\n**************************\n\nStephen Blackpool’s speech to Bounderby, from Book the Second, Chapter 5, is one of the few glimpses that we receive into the lives of the Hands. His long sentences and repetition of words such as “an’” and “Look” mimic the monotony of the workers’ lives. Similarly, Stephen’s dialect illustrates his lack of education and contrasts with the proper English spoken by the middle-class characters and by the narrator. In spite of his lack of formal education, however, Stephen possesses greater insight about the relationship between employer and employee than does Bounderby. Stephen notes that “yo” (the factory owners and employers) and “us” (the Hands) are constantly opposed, but that the Hands stand no chance in the contest because the employers possess all the wealth and power. However, he does not blame the employers solely for the suffering of the poor, concluding instead that the situation is a “muddle” and that it is difficult to determine who is responsible for society’s ills. Stephen also suggests that the monotony of factory labor seems futile to the Hands, who need to strive for some larger goal in order to make the endless round of production seem worthwhile. The “distant object” or larger goal that he mentions here is later symbolized by the bright star on which he gazes while trapped at the bottom of the mine shaft.\n\n*********\n hey,pal you can find all details on  http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/hardtimes/
534733
America has turned out the way they FEARED it would.\n\nI predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.\n\nI tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.\n\nOur country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.\n\nQuotes by Thomas Jefferson