Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

“Circles” opens with the eye as the first circle and the horizon as the second: for Emerson, every truth and every deed can be surrounded by a larger one. Near the end, he praises the great man whom events cannot shake, and says that the one thing we seek “with insatiable desire” is to forget ourselves, “to do something without knowing how or why; in short, to draw a new circle.”

The line comes next, followed by: “The way of life is wonderful: it is by abandonment.” Emerson then quotes Oliver Cromwell, for whom a man never rises so high as when he does not know where he is going, and calls dreams, drink and opium mere counterfeits of this inspiration.

The essay appeared in 1841 in Emerson’s first collection of Essays. “Enthusiasm”, from a Greek word for being possessed by a god, had long been a suspect term, used for religious fanaticism; Emerson makes it the creative force behind all great work. The line is now a favourite of speeches, without its mystical background.

Essays: First Series, “Circles”, 1841

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