“Life is our dictionary.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A beautiful articulation of the belief that all of life’s experiences contribute to a scholar’ understanding.
The American Scholar (Primary source)
Delivered as a commencement address at Harvard, this speech was famously dubbed America’s Intellectual Declaration of Independence by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., an American polymath. Emerson urged American intellectuals to break free from European traditions and cultivate a uniquely American voice and scholarship, emphasizing the role of the scholar as Man Thinking.
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“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
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