Monday, November 30, 2009

Emerson Aphorisms

Please cite the aphorism that struck you the most in "Self Reliance". An aphorism is a short statment that expresses wise or clever observations about life. Please elaborate on its meaning and the overall significance and connection to you. Was there anything you disagreed with regarding Emerson's insights? Explain.

21 comments:

  1. Insist on yourself; never imitate. This aphorism meant a lot to me because it means that you should believe in yourself over someone else. You must never doubt your thoughts and never second guess yourself. The choice you make will best suit yourself because you know yourself best. I agree with this aphorism because I try and make the final decision for all of my problems or issues in my life and I suggest you do the same. I agree with Emerson and he seems like he was a very intelligent man. I like his philosophy and follow most of his statements as best as possible every day.

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  2. "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,--that is genius." This is my favorite Emerson Aphorism. That line stuck me the most because in our society today it is so easy to go alongside believing what other people say. People take other thoughts and ideas and put them into their own words in order to make them their "own." The internet allows people to do that also, they log onto a search engine and type something in, and click on a recommended site, and that is what they will automatically believe without doing any further research on the topic. We could create a smarter society if people went out and thought up their own thoughts and ideas that are completely new and tell the world about them. Who knows maybe your new thoughts will make a huge impact on the society. Most people go through their whole lives believing ideas that other people have come up with. People never seem to take the time for themselves and think about their beliefs and value system. I think highly of those who take on the world and what other people believe to be true. For example, homosexuals. They have continuously fought for their happiness. Luckily Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, and Vermont, marriages for same sex couples are legal and currently performed. Currently, not all 50 states have passed this law but homosexuals are constantly fighting for their rights believing all men and women are equal. Standing up for what you believe in isn't always the easiest thing, but the people who do it can make a difference in the world. Creating your own thoughts can change the society and make an impact around you.

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  3. "Imitation is suicide"-
    First things first: I love Emerson!
    This aphorism struck me the most as I read; it said to me that we will never truly live to our full potential if we are constantly mirroring how others live. We were made as individuals for a reason- we all have individual thoughts in our individual minds. I love that Emerson used the word suicide, because ultimately, we are KILLING ourselves through imitation. By mimicking others, we are digging our own graves- we slowly lose ourselves and we eventually die. I thrive on originality and I look for it in every person I meet. Where would we be if we all imitated one another? There would be no more truth to the human race. We would be mimes- trapped inside a box with all our faces painted white. To sustain life, we MUST be true to the way we were crafted- we MUST be who we are. So, leaving it to Emerson, who seemed to have said it best,
    "IMITATION IS SUICIDE"

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  4. Emerson has some powerful aphorisms but this quote, "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,-- that is genius" stood out to me the most. In our world today, people don't take the time to actually say what they mean, they simply go along with what other people say, just to make it easier. I think society should start speaking their mind, as well as having their own opinions about things. You shouldn't have to lie about your beliefs in this world. I think it's great that people are able to get their point across, but yet aren't afraid to do it.

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  5. The aphorism that stood out the most to me was, "Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron ring." This stood out to me because I think that it is almost impossible to be successful if you do not believe in yourself. The best example I can think of is sports. If you do not believe that you can make a free throw you'll never be able to. In the past I have struggled with self confidence, so every time that I succeed, I make sure that I tell myself that I can do it. When you trust in yourself you become mentally stronger which is also very important to your success. I believe that when someon eis mentally strong there is nothing that they cannot accomplish.

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  6. "Insist on yourself; never imitate" This showed me that being creative and doing what is true to you will always be the better choice than to copy someone else. Also making a decision based on your true beliefs is the most important thing. If you side with what you don't believe in then you are just cheating yourself from reaching your full potential. I didn't disagree with Emerson on most everything he had to say. He sounds like a wise man.

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  7. The aphorism that stood out to me most in Emerson’s, "Self reliance" is insist on yourself, never imitate. This stood out to me because it’s vital that you have your own values and don’t be influenced by others. You can learn more from yourself sometimes then from anyone else your knowledge is most important to yourself not anyone else’s knowledge. Another Aphorism I like is Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Its important that you follow every action you do by your heart and I think what he is saying through iron string is comparing the heart to being the strongest muscle and should be held like that follow your believes.

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  8. I like the statement, "A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace. I connected to this statement because when I put my beast effort into my work, when it is complete, I am always happy and relieved. When I slack in my work, I feel the exact opposite with "no peace" at all. Emerson is right in his thought that a man is relieved when he puts his full heart into his work.

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  10. "What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think." This quote is my favorite because it is how I try to live my life. Although I am constantly trying to do the actions that I believe are right and want to do I find my self mulling over what people will think of me. To me, and I am sure to many others, it is a hard thing to completely ignore what others think of you and act by yourself without outside influence. Sometimes the influence of others can be good and help you to succeed in certain actions. However, many times it is not. It is quite easy for me to be sucked into what other people think and want me to do. I have made many of my mistakes because others have influenced me but I am starting to become my own independent thinker and act the way I want to no matter what anyone else thinks. I am sure that many other people have this problem and I hope to one day be able to truly only do all that concerns me and not worry about what other people think.

    There was one of Emerson's insights that I partly disagreed with. "Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other." He argues that as we invent things such as the watch, we lose our ability to tell the time by the sun. However, I think that we do not lose this knowledge; we simply no longer need it. If it becomes necessary, we can always go back and relearn how to tell time by the sun. I think that my point is especially clear when we move to medicine. We have continued to advance in medical technologies and now developed countries such as the United States are able to maintain extremely low crude death rates and increased life expectancy. I don't think that anyone could argue that this is not an example of society advancing.

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  11. “Society never changes. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other.” This aphorism struck me most because it seemed to just cement my Romanticism project about how society is progressing by destroying nature. Humans believe that they are progressing when they are really destroying one aspect of the culture to gain a new aspect. The quote also struck me because it shows how with every new invention or idea, an old skill or way of thinking is lost. This means that society is never really progressing because it loses as much knowledge as it gains. The biggest struggle in the fast paced world of today is knowing that the only way to progress is to remember past failures. As George Santayana famously said, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

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  12. Ther is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide. I liked this passage not for its literall meaning, but for what it made me relize. After reading this, i noticed that most people do not relieze this, me being one of them. It is something that you could go an entire lifetime without relizing despite how stupid it may seem.

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  13. The aphorism that really took a stand in my mind was,"The power which resides in him is new in nature,and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried" This really jumped out at me while reading because I do believe a persons capabilities are endless. And no person should ever allow another to confine their abilities through arrogent and ignorant statements. Never allow another to tell you what you are able to achieve, who are they to decide for you? Never stop yourself from trying and continuing to try just because others do not respect or aknowledge your abilities. And,you never know what you may be good at until you try. No one can see into the future, so why pretend as if you can? Do not deny yourslef a skill untill you physically act on it and attempt. Sometimes our most skillfull feats are those we first doughted ourselves on.

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  14. I liked the aphorism "Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members." To me, it means that society is against the independence of its citizens. It wants the people to depend on others, to not be able to think for themselves. It wants you to have no confidence because it doesn't want change. Random gets people thinking and questioning, whereas order does not. The confidence from independence brings about change because once you are comfortable with yourself, you aren't constantly thinking about if you are living correctly. Once you stop thinking about what others are thinking about, you can think for yourself. Therefore you have less consistency, and you can do what you want, not what others want you to do. The perfect man is he who can stay himself and not get carried away with society's demands or expectations.

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  15. I liked when Emerson said "The virtue in most request is conformity." Because it is so true for society today. Everyone just wants to be part of the crowd, fit in with everyone else. If someone stands out in a way that is not considered normal or cool, it's typically looked down upon. Society views it as wrong if someone wants to dress a certain way or act a certain way. I just don't think that is right. Humans should be able to do what they want without being judged! Conformity will not go away, that's for sure, but i have a lot of respect for the people who are willing to break the "rule" of conformity.

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  16. The quote that I liked the most from "Self-Reliance" was, "The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is that i scatters your force." I think that he is saying that giving yourself to things that don't matter to you makes you less capable of giving yourself to things that strike passion in your heart. Your full potential will end up being drained.

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  17. "Yet he dismisses without notice his own thought, becaus it is his." This really stood out to me because i can relate what Emerson is saying to my own life. I always find myself second guessing my answers and what I have to say, because Im scared of what others might think of my thought/answer. In math class when I get an answer to a question and someone else gets a differnt answer I always go with that persons answer because I dont trust myself enough to belive that I got the right answer. Also when I have a thought about somthing wether it is in a socratic or in just a casual conversation, I really think about it before I say it and make sure it wont make me look supid or wierd to the people im saying it to. What I really think Emerson is saying is that we should say what we think and not be worried about being judged by others. From this aphorism I think that I will at least try to speak my mind more, and go with my answer rather than just assuming its wrong because someone else got a differnt answser.

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  18. The phrase which most struck me was "imitation is suicide". This is absolutely true. Humans are mortal creatures, and the only way to become immortal is to do something extraordinary and original, worth remembering. For example, Julius Caesar was largely responsible for the founding of the Roman Empire, Martin Luther sparked the Reformation which fragmented the church to this day, and our own Founding Fathers established a completely new type of government against the skepticism of many of their contemporaries. People who only imitate the works of others will not be remembered for it, for it is not of their own thinking. Such people will only be commonplace, one individual among many mediocre ones who will eventually become a name on an old census record, a brief mention in an obscure journal, or forgotten altogether. In this aphorism, Emerson is urging us not to follow the examples of others. He implores us to be unique, to leave our own mark upon history, or be doomed to eternity as dust.

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  19. The phrase that stuck out the most to me was "I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways." This quote sticks out to me beacause I try to live by this idea. The way I see it is the truth hurts and people should learn to accept it. By denying the truth you are not allowing change or growth. It may cause people to dislike you but in reality it isn's you they dislike, it is the truth. Censoring your beliefs or opinions when you are asked them is unfair and despite what might happen in the end the truth is the most powerful piece of our free will and our own idenity.

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  20. The quote that stood out the most to me is,"Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron ring." This really stuck with me because I think that trusting yourself and haveing confidence is the only possible way to succeed and to be different from everyone else. If you are not confident in what you do then you will most likely just do the same thing as everyone else. In order to succeed you need to try new things and trying new things is nearly impossible unless you trust yourself.

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  21. The quote that inspired me the most was "What I must so is all that concerns me, not what the people think." This inspired me the most because it is saying that we need to be individuals. A lot of people in high school think that they have to be like everyone else, when they don't. God created all of us to be different from one another. We should celebrate and appreciate the different views that everyone has to offer! :)

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