11th
Transcendental.
I read Emerson and Thoreau for the first time in a long time the other day, and remembered how energetic they are, how stoked on life. Reading Emerson especially is like jumping off a pier into a cold lake. Some quotes from him that I love, however soft-ball or “self-help” they may sound:
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”
“Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.”
“We do what we must, and call it by the best names.”
“Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.”
The most quotable man hates quotations.
And then there are these. School projects on the internets!
