Robert D. Richardson

"If there is a single moment … to give meaning to Emerson's life, it would be this moment when he recognized that his proper response to the world must be astonishment, his proper expression celebratio…"

"The truth was that Emerson did not often refer to Scripture because the Bible was no longer for him an object of study; it was an example for him for emulation. He was interested in his own primary, p…"

"Each of these sides of Emerson—The Plotinus and the Montaigne-Bacon—requires the other side. The highest goals or ambitions are inevitably judged by whether or not one can take concrete, measurable st…"

"Now, as Emerson turned to the active ministry, he tried emphatically to recover the original fervor of a Paul. When he later came to a parting of the ways with the church, he would see himself as a mo…"

"If your journal consists of the best moments of your life and reading, then rereading it will be like walking a high mountain trail that goes from peak to peak without the intervening descent into the…"

"To the question "What is God?" he now replies, "the most elevated conception of character that can be formed in the mind. It is the individual's own soul carried out to perfection."