From: j4	Date: March 13th, 2003 04:24 am (UTC)		(Link)

I don't actually know where it's from, I just found it while looking for something else ages ago... But I went to have a look for it, and mostly just found it in lists of quotes (sometimes even lists of Emerson's "quotes", as if he only wrote quotes...). I also found a page which suggested that the attribution was inaccurate, which given the total lack of citations seems increasingly likely. I also can't find it in Literature Online (although we have quite a lot of Emerson's works, which I may read later if I get bored...).

Ah well. If anybody can shed any light on its origins, I'd be delighted; but I still like the sentiment even if it was written by some complete unknown for a greetings-card or a twee little poster with pictures of flowers, rabbits, and/or footprints. :)

	From: j4	Date: March 13th, 2003 06:33 am (UTC)		(Link)

It also sounds terribly open-ended. I'm not sure whether it would be useful to declare there to be an "enough" point - whether it would be better to continually strive for more and more of these good things, or ever to declare that you have achieved enough of them to be satisfying.

I think I'd go for "keep striving to do them" rather than "keep striving to do more of them", if you see what I mean. It's an ongoing way of life, rather than a thing you can tick off and say "right, done that".

Do you realise just how well you are doing at these things?

Well, I laugh a lot. Sometimes I even manage to stop before the men in white coats haul me away. :-}

Seriously, though... I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I'm doing okay at these things ... and then the only problem is trying to keep believing that these things are worthwhile when I'm surrounded by people who are publishing ground-breaking novels, composing symphonies, writing useful software, curing cancer, etc. -- and most of them can do all the generic fluffy Being Nice To People stuff and achieve Great Things, whereas I can only intermittently manage the Being Nice To People, and I do nothing useful or creative or interesting.

The rest of the time I feel like every time I open my mouth, somebody tells me I'm evil and shouldn't be allowed to live. (This mostly happens on usenet, though.)

	From: reddragdiva	Date: March 13th, 2003 08:12 am (UTC)		(Link)

Remember the ray that beams over Cambridge? I think on some people its effects might have been permanent ...

	From: j4	Date: March 13th, 2003 06:27 am (UTC)		(Link)

Badgers. :)

	From: j4	Date: March 14th, 2003 03:49 am (UTC)		(Link)

... Except it doesn't appear to be by him at all, sadly. :-/

There are certainly lots of good quotes all over the web which are attributed (without any supporting citations) to Emerson... I think I still prefer Anon.'s works, though. :)