The Conduct of Life is a collection of essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson published in 1860 and revised in 1876. In this volume, Emerson sets out to answer “the question of the times:” “How shall I live?” It is composed of nine essays, each preceded by a poem. These nine essays are largely based on lectures Emerson held throughout the country, including for a young, mercantile audience in the lyceums of the Midwestern boomtowns of the 1850s.
The Conduct of Life has been named as both one of Emerson's best works and one of his worst. It was one of Emerson's most successful publications and has been identified as a source of influence for a number of writers, including Friedrich Nietzsche.
Read more about The Conduct Of Life: Publication, Intitial Reception, Significance, The Essays, Translations, Bibliography
Famous quotes containing the words conduct of life, conduct and/or life:
“I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1966)
“I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1966)
“I have no doubt that they lived pretty much the same sort of life in the Homeric age, for men have always thought more of eating than of fighting; then, as now, their minds ran chiefly on the “hot bread and sweet cakes;” and the fur and lumber trade is an old story to Asia and Europe.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)