“ No man can antedate his experience, or guess what faculty or feeling a new object shall unlock, any more than he can draw to-day the face of a person whom he shall see to-morrow for the first time. ”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, History (1841). copy citation
| Author | Ralph Waldo Emerson |
|---|---|
| Source | History |
| Topic | experience time |
| Date | 1841 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | in "Essays: First Series" |
| Note | |
| Weblink | https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays:_First_Series/History |
Context
“A mind might ponder its thought for ages, and not gain so much self-knowledge as the passion of love shall teach it in a day. Who knows himself before he has been thrilled with indignation at an outrage, or has heard an eloquent tongue, or has shared the throb of thousands in a national exultation or alarm? No man can antedate his experience, or guess what faculty or feeling a new object shall unlock, any more than he can draw to-day the face of a person whom he shall see to-morrow for the first time.
I will not now go behind the general statement to explore the reason of this correspondency. Let it suffice that in the light of these two facts, namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its correlative, history is to be read and written.”
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