To the question "What is God?" he now replies, "the most elevated conception of character that can be formed in the mind. It is the individual's own … - Robert D. Richardson

Each of these sides of Emerson—The Plotinus and the Montaigne-Bacon—requires the other side. The highest goals or ambitions are inevitably judged by whether or not one can take concrete, measurable steps to reach them, while the practical, workaday side of things is most interesting to Emerson when it serves or leads to something great.

If there is a single moment … to give meaning to Emerson's life, it would be this moment when he recognized that his proper response to the world must be astonishment, his proper expression celebration.

If your journal consists of the best moments of your life and reading, then rereading it will be like walking a high mountain trail that goes from peak to peak without the intervening descent into the trough of routine. Just reading such a journal of high points will tighten your strings and raise your pitch.