There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world.
Interpretation
Creative reading enhances understanding and appreciation of texts.
Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes that engaging with literature isn't just about reading words; it's about bringing one's own creativity and interpretation into the experience. When readers invest their mental energy into deciphering a text, that text comes alive, revealing deeper meanings and connections that reflect both the author’s intentions and the reader’s own insights.
In practice
In a lecture on literary analysis, one might use this quote to illustrate the importance of active engagement with texts.
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?
In all the twelve years I was at school no one ever succeeded in making me write a Latin verse or learn any Greek except the alphabet.
While my parents never had the time or money to secure university education themselves, they were adamant that their children should. In comfort and in love, we were taught the joys of knowledge and of work well done. I only regret that neither my mother nor my father could live to see the day I would accept the Nobel Prize.
Trust your daughters, they are faithful. Honor your daughters, they are honorable. Educate your daughters, they are amazing.
How many times... have you encountered the saying, 'When the student is ready, the Master speaks?' Do you know why that is true? The door opens inward. The Master is everywhere, but the student has to open his mind to hear the Masters Voice.
Surely, we've got a way that we can tinker with this system that shuttles our children from decrepit, underfunded schools to brand-new high-tech prisons.
In my work a good library is essential. It enables me to learn the background and previous discussions of the various issues I am called upon to decide. It provides the stability and continuity for the rule of law.
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