Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882)
American philosopher, essayist, and poet.
Inasmuch as the soul is present, there will be power not confident but agent. To talk of reliance is a poor external way of speaking. Speak rather of that which relies, because it works and is. Who has more obedience than I masters me, though he should not raise his finger. Round him I must revolve by the gravitation of spirits. We fancy it rhetoric, when we speak of eminent virtue. We do not yet see that virtue is Height, and that a man or a company of men, plastic and permeable to principles, by the law of nature must overpower and ride all cities, nations, kings, rich men, poets, who are not.
This is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on this, as on every topic, the resolution of all into the ever-blessed ONE. Self-existence is the attribute of the Supreme Cause, and it constitutes the measure of good by the degree in which it enters into all lower forms. All things real are so by so much virtue as they contain.
When nature removes a great man, people explore the horizon for a successor; but none comes, and none will. His class is extinguished with him. In some other and quite different field the next man will appear.
Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind and when the same thought occurs in another man, it is the key to that era.
It is easy to live for others; everybody does. I call on you to live for yourselves.
The difference between men is in their principle of association. Some men classify objects by color and size and other accidents of appearance; others by intrinsic likeness, or by the relation of cause and effect. The progress of the intellect is to the clearer vision of causes, which neglects surface differences. To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. For the eye is fastened on the life, and slights the circumstance. Every chemical substance, every plant, every animal in its growth, teaches the unity of cause, the variety of appearance.
We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.
Nature paints the best part of a picture, carves the best parts of the statue, builds the best part of the house, and speaks the best part of the oration.
Poetry teaches the enormous force of a few words, and, in proportion to the inspiration, checks loquacity.
In actions of enthusiasm, this drawback appears: but in those lower activities, which have no higher aim than to make us more comfortable and more cowardly, in actions of cunning, actions that steal and lie, actions that divorce the speculative from the practical faculty, and put a ban on reason and sentiment, there is nothing else but drawback and negation.
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
Art is a jealous mistress.
The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.
Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun;
Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk.
It costs a beautiful person no exertion to paint her image on our eyes; yet how splendid is that benefit! It costs no more for a wise soul to convey his quality to other men.
Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.
Whoso walketh in solitude,
And inhabiteth the wood,
Choosing light, wave, rock, and bird,
Before the money-loving herd,
Into that forester shall pass
From these companions power and grace.
A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.
Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue.
Our chief want in life, is somebody who shall make us do what we can.