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161 " The student is to read history actively not passively. "
― Ralph Waldo Emerson , Self-Reliance and Other Essays
162 " All things are engaged in writing their history...Not a foot steps into the snow, or along the ground, but prints in characters more or less lasting, a map of its march. The ground is all memoranda and signatures; and every object covered over with hints. In nature, this self-registration is incessant, and the narrative is the print of the seal. "
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
163 " People do not seem to realise that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character. "
164 " Every industrious man, in every lawful calling, is a useful man. And one principal reason why men are so often useless is that they neglect their own profession or calling, and divide and shift their attention among a multiplicity of objects and pursuits. "
165 " Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience. "
166 " I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature. "
― Ralph Waldo Emerson , Nature and Selected Essays
167 " To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. "
168 " In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth. "
169 " The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows... "
― Ralph Waldo Emerson , Nature and Walking
170 " Nature is not always tricked in holiday attire, but the same scene which yesterday breathed perfume and glittered as for the frolic of the nymphs, is overspread with melancholy today. Nature always wears the colors of the spirit. "
171 " Nature is a language and every new fact one learns is a new word; but it is not a language taken to pieces and dead in the dictionary, but the language put together into a most significant and universal sense. I wish to learn this language--not that I may know a new grammar, but that I may read the great book which is written in that tongue. "
172 " She shows us only surfaces but Nature is a million fathoms deep. "
173 " Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same "
174 " Have mountains, and waves, and skies, no significance but what we consciously give them, when we employ them as emblems of our thoughts? "
― Ralph Waldo Emerson , Nature
175 " To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. "
176 " Language is fossil poetry "
177 " Over the inter glaciers,I see the summer glow,And, through the wild-piled snowdrift,The warm rosebuds below. "
178 " There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all parts, that is, the poet. "
179 " A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature. "
180 " We are like travelers using the cinders of a volcano to roast their eggs. "