In talking with scholars, I observe that they lost on ruder companions those years of boyhood which alone could give imaginative literature a religious and infinite quality in their esteem.
Interpretation
Emerson suggests that the imaginative quality of literature is often diminished when scholars are disconnected from the raw experiences of youth.
Ralph Waldo Emerson reflects on the impact of childhood experiences on the appreciation of literature. He argues that scholars, in their pursuit of knowledge, may lose touch with the more visceral and imaginative aspects of life that can enrich their understanding of literature. The 'ruder companions' of youth offer a richness to life that contributes to a deeper, more spiritual appreciation of literary works, contrasting with the often structured and formal education of scholars.
In practice
In a lecture on the importance of experiential learning, this quote serves to illustrate how childhood encounters shape our understanding of art.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
When individual members and families immerse themselves in the scriptures regularly and consistently, β¦ other areas of activity will automatically come. Testimonies will increase. Commitment will be strengthened. Families will be fortified. Personal revelation will flow
I think someone should explain to the child that it's OK to make mistakes. That's how we learn. When we compete, we make mistakes.
The art of reading is to skip judiciously.
There should be a class on apartheid. There should be a class on why people are hungry, but there are not. There are classes on...gym. Physical Education.
In architecture you should live for 150 years, because you have to learn in the first 75 years.
What you want is practice, practice, practice. It doesnβt matter what we write (at least this is my view) at our age, so long as we write continually as well as we can. I feel that every time I write a page either of prose or of verse, with real effort, even if itβs thrown into the fire the next minute, I am so much further on.
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