sponges & springs

Yesterday was the birthday in 1803 of Ralph Waldo Emerson,  in Boston... [Writer's Almanac]

Good excuse to repeat one of my favorite Emerson lines:

"Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote those books."

This is nothing against books and libraries and old dead philosophers, but-- the message is-- don't just be a sponge, be a spring too. Or, as he also said:

"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." 

He also said something about his books being in his library but his study being in nature.... Where the springs run deep.