Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.


If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him w

Summary

This quote suggests that the measure of someone's intellect can be determined by the types of books they choose to read. It implies that individuals with exceptional intelligence may possess a specialized knowledge or have a deep understanding of a particular subject, and this can be reflected in their reading choices. By asking about a person's preferred books, we can gain insights into their intellectual curiosity, interests, and the ideas that influence their thinking. This quote emphasizes the significance of literature as a medium for intellectual growth and development.

Topics

Reading
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Random Quotations

Language as putative science. - The significance of language for the evolution of culture lies in this, that mankind set up in language a separate world beside the other world, a place it took to be so firmly set that, standing upon it, it could lift the rest of the world off its hinges and make itself master of it. To the extent that man has for long ages believed in the concepts and names of things as in aeternae veritates he has appropriated to himself that pride by which he raised himself above the animal: he really thought that in language he possessed knowledge of the world. The sculptor of language was not so modest as to believe that he was only giving things designations, he conceived rather that with words he was expressing supreame knowledge of things; language is, in fact, the first stage of occupation with science. Here, too, it is the belief that the truth has been found out of which the mightiest sources of energy have flowed. A great deal later - only now - it dawns on men that in their belief in language they have propagated a tremendous error. Happily, it is too late for the evolution of reason, which depends on this belief, to be put back. - Logic too depends on presuppositions with which nothing in the real world corresponds, for example on the presupposition that there are identical things, that the same thing is identical at different points of time: but this science came into existence through the opposite belief (that such conditions do obtain in the real world). It is the same with mathematics, which would certainly not have come into existence if one had known from the beginning that there was in nature no exactly straight line, no real circle, no absolute magnitude.

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