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The American Scholar  by RALPH WALDO EMERSON

26 November 2008
Vol. 8, No. 3
essay, speech

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. He sees his bushel and his cart, and nothing beyond, and sinks into the farmer, instead of Man on the farm. The tradesman scarcely ever gives an ideal worth to his work, but is ridden by the routine of his craft, and the soul is subject to dollars. The priest becomes a form; the attorney, a statute-book; the mechanic, a machine; the sailor, a rope of a ship.

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.

A Word for Autumn  by A. A. MILNE

30 September 2006
Vol. 6, No. 3

I knew all along that it would not last. Even in April I was saying that winter would soon be here. Yet somehow it had begun to seem possible lately that a miracle might happen, that summer might drift on and on through the months – a final upheaval to crown a wonderful year.

Truth of Intercourse  by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

14 August 2006
Vol. 6, No. 2
essay

Among sayings that have a currency in spite of being wholly false upon the face of them for the sake of a half-truth upon another subject which is accidentally combined with error, one of the grossest and broadest conveys the monstrous proposition that it is easy to tell the truth and hard to tell a lie. I wish heartily it were.

Temporal Happiness from Fruits of Solitude  by WILLIAM PENN

24 February 2006
Vol. 5, No. 4

Too few know when they have Enough; and fewer know how to employ it.

The Four Ages of Poetry  by THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK

8 February 2006
Vol. 5, No. 4
essay, poetic theory

Poetry, like the world, may be said to have four ages, but in a different order: the first age of poetry being the age of iron; the second, of gold; the third, of silver; and the fourth, of brass.

The Wave Theory of Light  by SIR WILLIAM THOMSON

16 December 2005
Vol. 5, No. 4
science writing

Let observers observe the blue sky not only in winter when the earth is covered with snow, but in summer when it is covered with dark green foliage. This will help to unravel the complicated phenomena in question.

The Law of Hippocrates  by  HIPPOCRATES

26 November 2005
Vol. 5, No. 3
translation, science writing

Medicine is of all the arts the most noble…

The Oath of Hippocrates  by  HIPPOCRATES

24 November 2005
Vol. 5, No. 3
translation, science writing

I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous.

Letter to Thomas Higginson on 15 April 1862  by EMILY DICKINSON

12 September 2005
Vol. 5, No. 3
cover letter

Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?

The Mind is so near itself—it cannot see, distinctly—and I have none to ask—

To Charles Brown on November 30, 1820  by JOHN KEATS

14 May 2005
Vol. 5, No. 1
letter

here is one thought enough to kill me—I have been well, healthy, alert, &c, walking with her—and now—the knowledge of contrast, feeling for light and shade, all that information (primitive sense) necessary for a poem are great enemies to the recovery of the stomach. There, you rogue, I put you to the torture…

To Richard Woodhouse on October 27, 1818  by JOHN KEATS

A Poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence; because he has no Identity—he is continually in for—and filling some other Body—The Sun, the Moon, the Sea, and Men and Women who are creatures of impulse are poetical and have about them an unchangeable attribute—the poet has none; no identity—he is certainly the most unpoetical of all of God's Creatures.

To John Taylor on February 27, 1818  by JOHN KEATS

…but it is easier to think what Poetry should be than to write it…

To J.H. Reynolds on February 19, 1818  by JOHN KEATS

I have an idea that a Man might pass a very pleasant life in this manner—let him on any certain day read a certain Page of full Poesy or distilled Prose and let him wander with it, and muse upon it, and reflect from it, and bring home to it, and prophesy upon it, and dream upon it—untill it becomes stale—but when will it do so? Never…

To Benjamin Bailey on November 22, 1817  by JOHN KEATS

I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination—What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth—whether it existed before or not…

 

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