Ralph Waldo Emerson: I Am Not Alone

The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unaknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them. 

         --Ralph Waldo Emerson, from "Nature"

Emerson: On Thoreau

(Photo Credit: Catherine Hall, http://www.shepherd.edu/transweb/waldenpond.htm)

[One of the weapons] with which he conquered all obstacles in science was patience. He knew how to sit immovable, a part of the rock he rested on, until the bird, the reptile, the fish, which had retired from him, should come back, and resume its habits, nay, moved by curiosity, should come to him and watch him.                                        --R. W. Emerson, from "Thoreau"

More Emerson: There Are Doubts

It stands in [the Sceptic's] mind that our life in the world is not of quite so easy interpretations as churches and schoolbooks say. He does not wish to take ground against these benevolences, to play the part of the devil's attorney, and blazon every doubt and sneer that darkens the sun for him. But he says, There are doubts.

--R. W. Emerson, from "Montaigne; or, the Sceptic"

Emerson: Expecting Nothing

I compared notes with one of my friends who expects everything of the universe, and is disappointed when anything is less than the best, and I found that I begin at the other extreme, expecting nothing, and am always full of thanks for moderate goods. I accept the clangor and jangle of contrary tendencies. 

--R. W. Emerson, from "Experience"

Emerson: What is Wisdom?

To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.

--R. W. Emerson, from "Experience"

Emerson: The Poet is One Chasing Beauty

Even when Emerson says something I disagree with--which is often--I still like the way he says it. Here, I like both what he says and the way he says it. 

[The poet] pursues a beauty, half seen, which flies before him. The poet pours out verses in every solitude. Most of the things he says are conventional, no doubt; but by and by he says something which is original and beautiful. That charms him. He would say nothing else but such things. 

--R. W. Emerson, from the essay "The Poet"

Common Miracles

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
                          

--R. W. Emerson, "Nature"

Emerson on Politics

My last political post was such a rousing success I thought I'd try another. I think Emerson is on to something here.

Our only safe rule in politics heretofore was, always to believe that the worst would be done. Then we were not deceived. 

--from Journals, January 1862

The Scholar's Opinion--Emerson

A scholar is a man with this inconvenience, that, when you ask him his opinion of any matter, he must go home & look up his manuscripts to know. 

--Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Journals, 1885

Emerson: Be an Opener of Doors

(Google Images)

Be an opener of doors for such as come after thee and do not try to make the Universe a blind alley. 

--Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals (June-August, 1844)

Immortal by Beauty

(Sunrise, Daufuskie Island)

June 8, 1838. Why do we seek this lurking beauty, in skies, in poems, in drawings? Ah because there we are safe, there we neither sicken nor die. I think we fly to Beauty as an asylum from the terrors of finite nature. We are made immortal by this kiss, by the contemplation of beauty. 

--Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Journals

Within and Above are synonyms

Blessed is the day when the youth discovers that Within and Above are synonyms. 

--Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his Journal Dec. 21 1834.

Union with God

Ineffable is the union of man and God in every act of the soul. The simplest person, who in his integrity worships God, becomes God: yet for ever and ever the influx of this better and universal self is new and unsearchable.

Ralph Waldo Emerson--from The Oversoul