The most active lives have so much routine as to preclude progress almost equally with the most inactive. Ralph Waldo Emerson More Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson More Quotes From Ralph Waldo Emerson If we tire of the saints, Shakspeare is our city of refuge. Ralph Waldo Emerson tire saint cities Shakespeare carries us to such a lofty strain of intelligent activity, as to suggest a wealth which beggars his own; and we then feel that the splendid works which he has created, and which in other hours we extol as a sort of self-existent poetry, take no stronger hold of real nature than the shadow of a passing traveller on the rock. The inspiration which uttered itself in Hamlet and Lear could utter things as good from day to day, for ever. Ralph Waldo Emerson intelligent inspiration real If I could put my hand on the north star, would it be as beautiful? The sea is lovely, but when we bathe in it the beauty forsakesall the near water. For the imagination and senses cannot be gratified at the same time. Ralph Waldo Emerson stars beautiful hands Whatever appeals to the imagination, by transcending the ordinary limits of human ability, wonderfully encourages and liberates us. Ralph Waldo Emerson limits imagination ordinary Nothing can be colder than his head, when the lightnings of his imagination are playing in the sky. Ralph Waldo Emerson plato imagination sky We are imprisoned in life in the company of persons powerfully unlike us. Ralph Waldo Emerson alienation company life Underneath the inharmonious and trivial particulars, is a musical perfection, the Ideal journeying always with us, the heaven without rent or seam. Ralph Waldo Emerson journey perfection heaven Nature turns all malfaisance to good. Ralph Waldo Emerson good-nature goodness nature All things are flowing, even those that seem immovable. The adamant is always passing into smoke. The plants imbibe the materialswhich they want from the air and the ground. They burn, that is, exhale and decompose their own bodies into the air and earth again. The animal burns, or undergoes the like perpetual consumption. The earth burns, the mountains burn and decompose, slower, but incessantly. Ralph Waldo Emerson nature change animal Nature does not cocker us: we are children, not pets: she is not fond: everything is dealt to us without fear or favor, after severe universal laws. Ralph Waldo Emerson nature fear children Man is the broken giant, and in all his weakness both his body and his mind are invigorated by habits of conversation with nature. Ralph Waldo Emerson nature broken men Genius detects through the fly, through the caterpillar, through the grub, through the egg, the constant individual; through countless individuals the fixed species; through many species the genus; through all genera the steadfast type; through all the kingdoms of organized life the eternal unity. Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same. Ralph Waldo Emerson eggs nature clouds The kingdom of man over nature, which cometh not with observation,--a dominion such as now is beyond his dream of God,--he shall enter without more wonder than the blind man feels who is gradually restored to perfect sight. Ralph Waldo Emerson nature dream men Every rational creature has all nature for his dowry and estate. It is his, if he will. He may divest himself of it; he may creepinto a corner, and abdicate his kingdom, as most men do, but he is entitled to the world by his constitution. Ralph Waldo Emerson nature humanity men Nature always wears the colors of the spirit. To a man laboring under calamity, the heat of his own fire hath sadness in it. Ralph Waldo Emerson sadness nature men The visible heavens and earth sympathize with Jesus. Ralph Waldo Emerson nature heaven jesus In a cabinet of natural history, we become sensible of a certain occult recognition and sympathy in regard to the most unwieldy and eccentric forms of beast, fish, and insect. Ralph Waldo Emerson nature fishing sympathy The world proceeds from the same spirit as the body of man. It is a remoter and inferior incarnation of God, a projection of God in the unconscious. Ralph Waldo Emerson nature god men The use of natural history is to give us aid in supernatural history: the use of the outer creation, to give us language for the beings and changes of the inward creation. Ralph Waldo Emerson nature change history Nature will not let us fret and fume. She does not like our benevolence or our learning much better than she likes our frauds andwars. When we come out of the caucus, or the bank, or the abolition-convention, or the temperance-meeting, or the transcendental club, into the fields and woods, she says to us, "so hot? my little Sir. Ralph Waldo Emerson clubs nature ambition
