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Self-Reliance
- Narrated by: Jim Killavey
- Length: 1 hr and 13 mins
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Publisher's summary
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American philosopher, lecturer, essayist, and poet, who is best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was a a champion of individualism and wrote dozens of essays. Most criics consider "Self-Reliance" his best. It has the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's repeating themes, the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency. It also emphasized the need to follow one's own instincts and ideas. "Self-Reliance" contains one of Emerson's most famous quotes: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
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What listeners say about Self-Reliance
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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- cindilla
- 12-15-12
Wonderful
If you could sum up Self-Reliance in three words, what would they be?
Wonderful rendition of one of my favorite essays.
What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?
Clear, concise, thoughtful
What about Jim Killavey’s performance did you like?
Did a great job.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
The whole thing
Any additional comments?
Intend to listen to "Civil Disobedience" next. Hope it's the same reader.
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6 people found this helpful
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Performance
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Story
- Mike
- 11-17-11
Disappointing Performance
Self Reliance is one of my favorite essays. In this case, the meaning is often lost. Killavey enunciates clearly, but each word is given the same tonal value -- as if reading a list -- which results in inappropriate pauses (or lack of) and emphasis which makes the thoughts / ideas hard to follow. I'm disappointed...
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2 people found this helpful
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Performance
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Story
- MiamiLitNerd
- 09-28-16
Narrator didn't pronounce his Rs
I guess it's realistic because Emerson was a Bostonian, but it was really annoying that he said, for example, propahty instead of property. Really. It got annoying and hard to understand at times.
Text is obviously a classic of American literary thought.
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Performance
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Story
- Jeff A.
- 03-23-16
Great points but read to hastily to retain it.
Lots of great points, but it's read so fast that it's difficult to comprehend and retain it all even after a second listen.
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- Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues
- By: Brett McKay, Kate McKay
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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What makes a man manly? Master the art of manliness by learning about the seven manly virtues in this essential guide from authors Brett and Kate McKay. Each chapter covers one of the seven virtues and is packed with the best classic advice ever written down for men.
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Just Quotes, No Content. Save Your Credit!
- By chris on 10-28-13
By: Brett McKay, and others
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Nostalgia
- Going Home in a Homeless World
- By: Anthony Esolen
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Alone among the creatures of the world, man suffers a pang both bitter and sweet. It is an ache for the homecoming. The Greeks called it nostalgia. Post-modern man, homeless almost by definition, cannot understand nostalgia. If he is a progressive, dreaming of a utopia to come, he dismisses it contemptuously, eager to bury a past he despises. If he is a reactionary, he sentimentalizes it, dreaming of a lost golden age. In this profound reflection, Anthony Esolen explores the true meaning of nostalgia and its place in the human heart.
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Deep and thought provoking.
- By Holly Stockley on 04-24-19
By: Anthony Esolen
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The Renaissance
- Studies in Art and Poetry
- By: Walter Pater
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Published to great acclaim in 1873, Walter Pater’s compendium of idiosyncratic, impressionistic essays on the Renaissance gained him a reputation as a daring modern philosopher. Oscar Wilde called it the “holy writ of beauty.” It was Pater’s cry of “art for art’s sake” that became the manifesto for the aesthetic movement. He believed that art should be sensual and that beauty should rank as the highest ideal. Marked by elegant fluency, Pater’s essays discuss Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and other artists who, for him, embodied the spirit of the Renaissance.
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Bizarre....no idea what I just listened to.
- By GogolGirl on 10-14-20
By: Walter Pater
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The Coming Race
- By: Edward Bulwer Lytton
- Narrated by: William Hope
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Edward Bulwer-Lytton's book is ostensibly a work of Science Fiction. It deals with an underground race of advanced beings, masters of Vril energy - a strange power that can both heal and destroy - who intend to leave their subterranean existence and conquer the world. But the book has been seen by many as a barely concealed account of Hidden Wisdom, a theory that has attracted many strange bed-fellows, including the French author Louis Jacolliot, the Polish explorer Ferdinand Ossendowsky, and Adolf Hitler.
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dated - worked to get through it
- By Pam B. on 10-10-19
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Measure for Measure
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Royal Shakespeare Company
- Length: 2 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
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A performance of the tragi-comedy by the Royal Shakespeare Company. When a young woman is offered the choice of saving a man's life at the price of her own chastity, what should she do? The political and moral corruption of Vienna has driven Duke Vincentio into hiding while his deputy governor, Angelo, is left to revive the old discipline of civic authority. Angelo's first act is to imprison Claudio, a young nobleman who has gotten his betrothed, Juliet, with child.
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Highly recommended
- By Todd on 10-16-08
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Emerson
- The Mind on Fire
- By: Robert D. Richardson
- Narrated by: Michael McConnohie
- Length: 26 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of the most important figures in the history of American thought, religion, and literature. The vitality of his writings and the unsettling power of his example continue to influence us more than a hundred years after his death. Now Robert D. Richardson Jr. brings to life an Emerson very different from the old stereotype of the passionless Sage of Concord.
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Finally!
- By Douglas on 08-15-14
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The Education of Henry Adams
- By: Henry Adams
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 19 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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As a journalist, historian, and novelist born into a family that included two past presidents of the United States, Henry Adams was constantly focused on the American experiment. An immediate bestseller awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1919, The Education of Henry Adams recounts his own and the country's education from 1838, the year of his birth, to 1905, incorporating the Civil War, capitalist expansion, and the growth of the United States as a world power.
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A Book EVERYONE should read once.
- By Darwin8u on 04-17-12
By: Henry Adams
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The Consolations of Philosophy
- By: Alain de Botton
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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