The man is the creator of his world. I choose to pursue certain thoughts to enter certain states of mind, & forthwith I seem to walk into woods by known ways & to hear wood birds & see pines & birches. I choose to pursue certain other thoughts, & Lo! I seem to visit the wharves & markets.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 5:172
I gladly pay the rent of my house because I therewith get the horizon & the woods which I pay no rent for. For day break & evening & night, I pay no tax I think it is a glorious bargain which I drive with the town.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 5:172
Why fret at particular events? For everything you have missed, you have gained some thing else: And for everything you gain, you lose something.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 5:171
The Use of Nature is to awaken the feeling of the Absolute. Nature is a perpetual effect. It is the great shadow pointing to an unseen Sun.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 5:171
We are always learning that duration & magnitude are of no account to the soul. In the eternity of nature centuries are lost as moments are. In the immensity of matter, there is no great & no small. The grass & foliage that covers the whole globe from the snow that caps the north pole to the snow that caps the south pole, cost no more design or effort, then went to the opening bell of one lily, or to the germination of a grain of wheat. Time is nothing to laws. The ocean is a large drop; A drop is a small ocean.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 5:169
All powerful action is by bringing the forces of nature to bear upon our objects. We do not grind corn or lift the loom by our own strength but we build a mill & set the North wind to play upon our instrument or the expansive force of steam or the ebb & flow of the ocean. So in our manipulations, we do few things by muscular force but we place ourselves in such attitudes as to bring the force of gravity, the weight of the planet, that is, to bear upon the spade or axe we wield; in short in all our operations we seek not to use our own but to bring a quite infinite force to bear. In like manner are our intellectual works done. We are to hinder our individuality from acting; we are to bring the whole omniscience of Reason upon the subject before us. We are to aim at getting observations without aim, to subject to thought things seen without thought. What is it that gives force to the blow of ax or crowbar? Is it the muscles of the man’s arm or is it the attraction of the whole globe below it on the ax or bar?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 5:166
Fine thoughts flowing from an idea perceived by the mind & fine thoughts willfully recollected & exhibited, differ as leaves & flowers growing from a branch, & leaves & flowers tied together by string.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 5:166
Nothing bizarre, nothing whimsical will endure. Nature is ever interfering with Art. You cannot build your house or pagoda as you will but as you must. Gravity, Wind, sun, rain, the size of men & animals, & such other aliens have more to say than the architect. Beneath the Almighty necessity therefore I regard what is artificial in man’s life & works as petty & insignificant by the side of what is natural. Every violation, every suicide, every miracle, every willfulness however large it may show near us, melts quickly into the All, & at a distance is not seen. The outline is as smooth as the curve of the moon.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 5:164
