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Lives We Carry with Us: Profiles of Moral Courage
Lives We Carry with Us gathers together for the first time a diverse cross section of Coles’s profiles, originally published in our premier magazines over the span of five decades but never before collected in book form. Depicting the famous, the lesser known, and the unknown, the profiles here include portraits of James Agee, Dorothy Day, Erik Erikson, Dorothea Lange, Walker Percy, Bruce Springsteen, Simone Weil, and William Carlos Williams among others. Coles has chosen figures whom he considers his guardian spirits—individuals who shaped, challenged, and inspired one of the great moral voices of our era.
Profiles include:
James Rufus Agee (1909 – 1955) was was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S. He was the author of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (to which he contributed the text and Walker Evans contributed the photographs) which grew out of an assignment the two men accepted in 1936 to produce a magazine article on the conditions among white sharecropper families in the American South. His autobiographical novel, A Death in the Family (1957), won the author a posthumous Pulitzer Prize.
Simone Weil (1909 – 1943) was a French philosopher, activist, and religious searcher, whose death in 1943 was hastened by starvation. Weil published during her lifetime only a few poems and articles. With her posthumous works --16 volumes in all -- Weil has earned a reputation as one of the most original thinkers of her era. T.S. Eliot described her as "a woman of genius, of a kind of genius akin to that of the saints."
William Carlos Williams (1883 – 1963), was an American poet who was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine. Williams "worked harder at being a writer than he did at being a physician," wrote biographer Linda Wagner-Martin; but during his long lifetime, Williams excelled at both. He considered himself a socialist and opponent of capitalism and is probably spinning in his grave at the current state of things, economically and socially. One of his best known poems is an "apology poem" taught to most American children in elementary school called "This Is Just to Say" : "I have eaten / the plums / that were in / the icebox / and which / you were probably /saving / for breakfast. / Forgive me / they were delicious / so sweet /and so cold."
Dorothy Day (1897 – 1980) was an American journalist and social activist who became most famous for founding, with Peter Maurin, the Catholic Worker movement, a nonviolent, pacifist movement which combines direct aid for the poor and homeless with nonviolent direct action on their behalf.
Dorothea Lange (1895 – 1965) was a hugely influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best know for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Lange's photographs humanized the tragic consequences of the Great Depression and profoundly influenced the development of documentary photography, one of Robert Coles' great passions.
Erik Erikson (1902 – 1994) was a Danish-German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theories on social development of human beings. He may be most famous for coining the phrase "identity crisis." Erikson's greatest innovation was to postulate not five stages of development, as Freud has done with his psychosexual stages, but eight. Erik Erikson believed that every human being goes through a certain number of stages to reach his or her full development, theorizing eight stages, that a human being goes through from birth to death.
Walker Percy (1916 – 1990) was an American southern author best known for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans, the first of which, The Moviegoer, won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1962. He devoted his literary life to the exploration of "the dislocation of man in the modern age." His work displays a unique combination of existential questioning, Southern sensibility, and deep Catholic faith -- all themes of great interest to Coles.
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949), has long been in Robert Coles' orbit and he once held a concert as a fundraisr for Coles' magazine Double Take (now defunct). Springsteen's most successful studio albums, Born to Run and Born in the U.S.A., epitomize his penchant for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily life in America, and the latter album made him one of the most recognized artists of the 1980s within the United States.
Profiles include:
James Rufus Agee (1909 – 1955) was was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S. He was the author of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (to which he contributed the text and Walker Evans contributed the photographs) which grew out of an assignment the two men accepted in 1936 to produce a magazine article on the conditions among white sharecropper families in the American South. His autobiographical novel, A Death in the Family (1957), won the author a posthumous Pulitzer Prize.
Simone Weil (1909 – 1943) was a French philosopher, activist, and religious searcher, whose death in 1943 was hastened by starvation. Weil published during her lifetime only a few poems and articles. With her posthumous works --16 volumes in all -- Weil has earned a reputation as one of the most original thinkers of her era. T.S. Eliot described her as "a woman of genius, of a kind of genius akin to that of the saints."
William Carlos Williams (1883 – 1963), was an American poet who was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine. Williams "worked harder at being a writer than he did at being a physician," wrote biographer Linda Wagner-Martin; but during his long lifetime, Williams excelled at both. He considered himself a socialist and opponent of capitalism and is probably spinning in his grave at the current state of things, economically and socially. One of his best known poems is an "apology poem" taught to most American children in elementary school called "This Is Just to Say" : "I have eaten / the plums / that were in / the icebox / and which / you were probably /saving / for breakfast. / Forgive me / they were delicious / so sweet /and so cold."
Dorothy Day (1897 – 1980) was an American journalist and social activist who became most famous for founding, with Peter Maurin, the Catholic Worker movement, a nonviolent, pacifist movement which combines direct aid for the poor and homeless with nonviolent direct action on their behalf.
Dorothea Lange (1895 – 1965) was a hugely influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best know for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Lange's photographs humanized the tragic consequences of the Great Depression and profoundly influenced the development of documentary photography, one of Robert Coles' great passions.
Erik Erikson (1902 – 1994) was a Danish-German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theories on social development of human beings. He may be most famous for coining the phrase "identity crisis." Erikson's greatest innovation was to postulate not five stages of development, as Freud has done with his psychosexual stages, but eight. Erik Erikson believed that every human being goes through a certain number of stages to reach his or her full development, theorizing eight stages, that a human being goes through from birth to death.
Walker Percy (1916 – 1990) was an American southern author best known for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans, the first of which, The Moviegoer, won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1962. He devoted his literary life to the exploration of "the dislocation of man in the modern age." His work displays a unique combination of existential questioning, Southern sensibility, and deep Catholic faith -- all themes of great interest to Coles.
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949), has long been in Robert Coles' orbit and he once held a concert as a fundraisr for Coles' magazine Double Take (now defunct). Springsteen's most successful studio albums, Born to Run and Born in the U.S.A., epitomize his penchant for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily life in America, and the latter album made him one of the most recognized artists of the 1980s within the United States.
- GenresNonfiction
240 pages, Hardcover
First published August 3, 2010
1 person is currently reading
41 people want to read
About the author
Robert Coles
251 books78 followersChild psychiatrist, author, Harvard professor.
Robert Coles is a professor of psychiatry and medical humanities at the Harvard Medical School, a research psychiatrist for the Harvard University Health Services, and the James Agee Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard College.
Robert Coles is a professor of psychiatry and medical humanities at the Harvard Medical School, a research psychiatrist for the Harvard University Health Services, and the James Agee Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard College.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 3, 2020
Reading the words of a man who helped care for the mental well-being of Ruby Bridges and his powerful impression of her is an awfully timely find, and so I heartily disagree with other reviewers who whined about these essays about people of strong moral characters being dated. I originally found this one through an inter-library loan but had to purchase my own copy because I found that it had such a profound affect on me. Any time a book takes me down rabbit holes where I have to learn more, that is a book worth having and referring back to many times. These essays are an expanded version of the hero books that I used to ask my students to create, and the lives Coles chose to write about are an eclectic bunch. How grateful I am for the lives I carry with me and that I am adding to those heroes all the time as I learn and study and I added a couple of doozies after reading this book.
You know me, there are quotes to be remembered...
"Their story, yours and mine - it's what we all carry with us on this trip we take, and we owe it to each other to respect our stories and learn from them." -William Carlos Williams
"I try to think back; I try to remember this life that the Lord gave me; the other day I wrote down the words 'a life remembered,' and I was going to try to make a summary for myself, write what mattered most - but I couldn't do it. I just sat there and thought of our Lord, and His visit to us all those centuries ago, and I said to myself that my great luck was to have had Him on my mind for so long in my life!" -Dorothy Day
"No one who hasn't lived the life of a semi-cripple knows how much that means. I think it was perhaps the most important thing that happened to me. It formed me, guided me, instructed me, helped me, and humiliated me. All those things at once. I've never gotten over it and I am aware of the force and power of it." -Dorothea Lange (And I might add that I was struck with the thought that we are all semi-cripples if we will only acknowledge what cripples us and allow it the force and power to changes us for the better.)
"If we had troubadours, American troubadours, singing their poems to us (in person, not on some movie screen or home television set), maybe we'd be stopped still for a bit, so we could think about where we're heading, and where we might prefer to be headed." -William Carlos Williams (Coles goes on to name Bruce Springsteen as such a troubadour. I have seen the Boss live and it was a pretty powerful experience.)
"He reminded us that writers such as Kierkegaard, Pascal, and Weil are strong-minded social critics - anxious to connect the Gospel to this life we live, as opposed to emphasizing abstract theological discussion or the virtues of one or another ritualistic orientation."
"The constant illusion of revolution consists in believing that the victims of force, being innocent of the outrages that are committed, will use force justly if it is put into their hands. But except for souls which are fairly near saintliness, the victims are defiled by force, just as their tormentors are. The evil which is in the handle of the sword is transmitted to its point. So the victims thus put in power and intoxicated by the change do as much harm or more, and soon sink back again to were they were before." -Simone Weil
"Man is like a castaway, clinging to a star and tossed by the waves. He has not control over the movement imposed on him by the water. From the highest heaven God throws a rope. The man either grabs it or not." -Simone Weil
"Pride is the devil's characteristic attribute. And pride is a social thing...The Devil is the father of all prestige, and prestige is social. 'Opinion, queen of the world'. Therefore opinion is the devil. Prince of this world." -Simone Weil
"All we can do is pray for forgiveness, even as we try to have the courage to keep going in our appointed tasks."
"When I also think about the situation of the world, the complete darkness over our personal fate and my present imprisonment, then I believe that our union can only be a sign of God's grace and kindness, which calls us to faith. We would be blind if we did not see it. Jeremiah says at the moment of his people's great need 'still one shall buy houses and acres in this land' as a sign of trust in the future. This is where faith belongs. May God give it to us daily. And I do not mean the faith which flees the world, but the one that endures the world and which loves and remains true to the world in spite of all the suffering which it contains for us." -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"In a way, Bonhoeffer was divesting himself of the Lutheran legacy of a state-connected church and racially attaching himself to Jesus, who for him was now very much a living, constant ethical and spiritual guide."
"The heart of Bonhoeffer's spiritual legacy to us is not to be found in his words, his books, but in the way he spent his time on this earth, in his decision to live as if the Lord were a neighbor and friend, a constant source of courage and inspiration, a presence amid travail and joy alike, a reminder of love's obligations and affirmations and also of death's decisive meaning (how we die as a measure of how we have lived, of who we are). His spiritual gift to us, especially, is his life."
"We are part of an Anglo country and that will not change. I had to teach the facts of life to my four sons, and in so doing I learned my own lesson well." -Delores Garcia
"It is a sickness, you know: being always dissatisfied with what you have, and eager for a change." -Delores Garcia
"There are many kinds of slavery. You can become a slave without even knowing it. You can be white and have money but not own your soul." -Delores Garcia
"Punishment for a sin can be a sin. If you are proud of yourself for doing penance, you are defeated before you start." -Delores Garcia
"Did God form the beasts of the field, and the fowl of the air so that they should be treated this way by man?" -Delores Garcia
"I can't believe Christ wants us to be Anglo against Chicano, or Chicano against Anglo; but the world is full of bitterness, and when will there be an end to it, when?" -Delores Garcia
(Speaking of Ruby Bridges) "The great paradox that Christ reminded us about is that sometimes those who are lonely and hurt and vulnerable - meek, to use the word - are touched by grace and can show the most extraordinary kind of dignity, and in that sense, inherit not only the next world, but even at times moments of this one. We who have so much knowledge and money and power look on confused, trying to mobilize the intellect, to figure things out. It is not so figural, is it? These things are mysteries. As Flannery O'Connor said, 'Mystery is a great embarrassment to the modern mind.'"
You know me, there are quotes to be remembered...
"Their story, yours and mine - it's what we all carry with us on this trip we take, and we owe it to each other to respect our stories and learn from them." -William Carlos Williams
"I try to think back; I try to remember this life that the Lord gave me; the other day I wrote down the words 'a life remembered,' and I was going to try to make a summary for myself, write what mattered most - but I couldn't do it. I just sat there and thought of our Lord, and His visit to us all those centuries ago, and I said to myself that my great luck was to have had Him on my mind for so long in my life!" -Dorothy Day
"No one who hasn't lived the life of a semi-cripple knows how much that means. I think it was perhaps the most important thing that happened to me. It formed me, guided me, instructed me, helped me, and humiliated me. All those things at once. I've never gotten over it and I am aware of the force and power of it." -Dorothea Lange (And I might add that I was struck with the thought that we are all semi-cripples if we will only acknowledge what cripples us and allow it the force and power to changes us for the better.)
"If we had troubadours, American troubadours, singing their poems to us (in person, not on some movie screen or home television set), maybe we'd be stopped still for a bit, so we could think about where we're heading, and where we might prefer to be headed." -William Carlos Williams (Coles goes on to name Bruce Springsteen as such a troubadour. I have seen the Boss live and it was a pretty powerful experience.)
"He reminded us that writers such as Kierkegaard, Pascal, and Weil are strong-minded social critics - anxious to connect the Gospel to this life we live, as opposed to emphasizing abstract theological discussion or the virtues of one or another ritualistic orientation."
"The constant illusion of revolution consists in believing that the victims of force, being innocent of the outrages that are committed, will use force justly if it is put into their hands. But except for souls which are fairly near saintliness, the victims are defiled by force, just as their tormentors are. The evil which is in the handle of the sword is transmitted to its point. So the victims thus put in power and intoxicated by the change do as much harm or more, and soon sink back again to were they were before." -Simone Weil
"Man is like a castaway, clinging to a star and tossed by the waves. He has not control over the movement imposed on him by the water. From the highest heaven God throws a rope. The man either grabs it or not." -Simone Weil
"Pride is the devil's characteristic attribute. And pride is a social thing...The Devil is the father of all prestige, and prestige is social. 'Opinion, queen of the world'. Therefore opinion is the devil. Prince of this world." -Simone Weil
"All we can do is pray for forgiveness, even as we try to have the courage to keep going in our appointed tasks."
"When I also think about the situation of the world, the complete darkness over our personal fate and my present imprisonment, then I believe that our union can only be a sign of God's grace and kindness, which calls us to faith. We would be blind if we did not see it. Jeremiah says at the moment of his people's great need 'still one shall buy houses and acres in this land' as a sign of trust in the future. This is where faith belongs. May God give it to us daily. And I do not mean the faith which flees the world, but the one that endures the world and which loves and remains true to the world in spite of all the suffering which it contains for us." -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"In a way, Bonhoeffer was divesting himself of the Lutheran legacy of a state-connected church and racially attaching himself to Jesus, who for him was now very much a living, constant ethical and spiritual guide."
"The heart of Bonhoeffer's spiritual legacy to us is not to be found in his words, his books, but in the way he spent his time on this earth, in his decision to live as if the Lord were a neighbor and friend, a constant source of courage and inspiration, a presence amid travail and joy alike, a reminder of love's obligations and affirmations and also of death's decisive meaning (how we die as a measure of how we have lived, of who we are). His spiritual gift to us, especially, is his life."
"We are part of an Anglo country and that will not change. I had to teach the facts of life to my four sons, and in so doing I learned my own lesson well." -Delores Garcia
"It is a sickness, you know: being always dissatisfied with what you have, and eager for a change." -Delores Garcia
"There are many kinds of slavery. You can become a slave without even knowing it. You can be white and have money but not own your soul." -Delores Garcia
"Punishment for a sin can be a sin. If you are proud of yourself for doing penance, you are defeated before you start." -Delores Garcia
"Did God form the beasts of the field, and the fowl of the air so that they should be treated this way by man?" -Delores Garcia
"I can't believe Christ wants us to be Anglo against Chicano, or Chicano against Anglo; but the world is full of bitterness, and when will there be an end to it, when?" -Delores Garcia
(Speaking of Ruby Bridges) "The great paradox that Christ reminded us about is that sometimes those who are lonely and hurt and vulnerable - meek, to use the word - are touched by grace and can show the most extraordinary kind of dignity, and in that sense, inherit not only the next world, but even at times moments of this one. We who have so much knowledge and money and power look on confused, trying to mobilize the intellect, to figure things out. It is not so figural, is it? These things are mysteries. As Flannery O'Connor said, 'Mystery is a great embarrassment to the modern mind.'"
July 31, 2017
Live's We Carry With Us, is not an easy one to read, although it does have a profound message. Written by a retired Harvard professor in 2010, it documents portions of the lives of well-known people who he has known or has been greatly influenced by. From Ruby Bridges, a six year old little girl who attended school in New Orleans at the beginning of desegregation in a school of one. All of the other families boycotted to Dietrich Boenhoffer. Dorothy Day, Dorothea Lange, Bruce Springsteen, Erik Erickson, Walker Percy, William Carlos Williams and others. He salutes their moral courage, while acknowledging their flaws. The stories are well-written. The connections he draws between his subjects are fascinating. Coles is a Pulitzer Prize sinning psychiatrist best-known for his five-part series Children of Crisis. I would have given it more stars, however, it is not for everyone. It reads more like a textbook than a romance novel.
June 25, 2017
These essays were uneven, although clearly related. One challenge is that some were excerpted from longer books or pieces he wrote. For example, the essay on Bruce Springsteen connects him to fellow NJ poets Walt Whitman and William Carlos Williams, but does little else to talk about him in his own right. The essays on Flannery O'Connor, Ruby Bridges, and Una Anciana were lovely. The one that drive me the most crazy was on Simone Weil - the entire essay assumes a familiarity with her work that I certainly don't have. Was she a know she wrote, but was she a theologian? A philosopher? A teacher? A society lady? It doesn't even mention when she was born or where she lived. Some things I can interpolate because I'm educated, but a lot of people would be left totally in the dark.
February 2, 2019
Probably not the best representation of his writing. Interesting people profiled, but his best writing was saved for the last 3 chapters. There was an unusual disconnect between his praise of Anna Freud for her work on the psychology of children and his extreme disdain for psychoanalysis in the rest of the book.
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December 29, 2019Look on Hoopla for this
January 8, 2024
People Coles admired and interviewwed in his career. Good overview/introduction to the subjects.
March 26, 2011
This book was recommended to me by a Pilgrim and I could easily find it in the PP library. Coles gives a different kind of Bio on thirteen people. Each bio is only five to six pages so he highlites more of their personalities, turning points in their lives and the courage they had in carving out their place in a particular specialty. The brevity of the bio's was a bit disappointing and yet I picked up some inside
traits and happenings that I had not gotten in other bios about these people. I particularly enjoyed reading again about Erik Erikson, Dorothy Day, Bruce Springsteen, Simone Weil and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, my model for Christian faith.
traits and happenings that I had not gotten in other bios about these people. I particularly enjoyed reading again about Erik Erikson, Dorothy Day, Bruce Springsteen, Simone Weil and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, my model for Christian faith.
December 26, 2011
profiles of modern courage - philosophers, writers, doctors, children, etc.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews