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 I was living in China, I learned to make things hyper-explicit because often they were being read by people whose command of English kept them from picking up what I thought were obvious signals.
I certainly wasn't seeking any degree, the way a college confers a status symbol upon its students. My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America. Not long ago, an English writer telephoned me, asking questions. One was, "What's your alma mater?" I told him, "Books.
My mother helped me understand how not to show off what I knew, but how to use it so that others might benefit.
When I was 11, I knew that I wanted to write a kid's book and tell the world what it was like being deaf.
I am always surprised people are surprised that people haven't read things.
No one is born with skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time.
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