Ralph Waldo Emerson on Nature

"Nature abhors the old, and old age seems the only disease; all others run into this one."

"Let us draw a lesson from nature, which always works by short ways. When the fruit is ripe, it falls."

"Nature magically suits the man to his fortunes, by making these the fruit of his character."

"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."

"God may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth."

"Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests and mines and stone-quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors."

"The world is upheld by the veracity of good men: they make the earth wholesome."

"He is great who is what he is from Nature, and who never reminds us of others."

"Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same."

"A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature."

"Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact."

"Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them."

"The sky is the daily bread of the eyes."

"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."

"Nature is always consistent, though she feigns to contravene her own laws. She keeps her laws, and seems to transcend them. She arms and equips an animal to find its place and living in the earth, and at the same time she arms and equips another animal to destroy it."

"But now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of man, nor is his genius admonished to stay at home, to put itself in communication with the internal ocean, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the urns of other men. We must go alone. I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching."

"Power is in nature the essential measure of right. Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which cannot help itself. The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise and orbit, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are demonstrations of the self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying soul."

"The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood."