Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
Knowledge exists to be imparted.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Edited by Edward Waldo Emerson and Waldo Emerson Forbes, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1909-1914.
This principle characterized most Islamic cultures for the next 400 years while Christian Europe was in the Dark Ages and had ignored most of the accumulated Western knowledge of the Greeks and Romans, The Muslims however, kept this knowledge alive and added to it supporting great mathematicians, scientists, philosophers, theologians and physicians. During the 12th century extreme fundamentalists gained control over Islam and this great principle of Umar’s was not only ignored but those who acquired new knowledge were persecuted as “innovators” often a capital crime. When Christian Europe began to rise intellectually, the Muslim societies were declining. Even today, the Islamic cultures are split as to the value of new knowledge and while there are modern Muslim scholars and scientists, there are still major forces throughout Islam who consider knowledge that is not in the Koran or which contradicts the Koran not only false, but heretical, often to be punished even by death.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.
