Reading Ralph Waldo Emerson

I scarce ever see young women who are not remarkably attractive without a wish an impulse to preach to them the doctrine of character. I have sad foresight of the mortifications that await them when I see what they look on. Could once their eye be turned on the beauty of being as it outshines the beauty of seeming, they would be saved.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 5:389

We have vastly more kindness than is ever spoken. Maugre all the selfishness, the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether. How many persons I meet in houses whom I scarcely speak to, who yet honor me & I them. How many I see in the street or sit with in the Church whom I warmly rejoice to be with. The heart knoweth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 5:384

Every day is new; every glance I throw upon nature ought to bring me new information: the gains of each day ought to bestow a new vision on tomorrow’s eyes, a new melody on tomorrow’s ears.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 5:381

Draw circles. The man finishes his story how good! how final! He fills the sky. Lo! on the other side rises also a man and draws a circle around the circle which we had just pronounced the outline of the sphere; then already is our first speaker not Man, but only a first speaker. His only redress is forthwith to draw a circle outside of his antagonist. And so on.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 5:372

Genius surprises us with every word. It does not surprise itself. It is moving by the selfsame law as you obey in your daily cogitation & one day you will tread without wonder the same steps.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 5:367

Man is surprised to find that things near are not less beautiful & wondrous than things remote. The secret of the scholar or intellectual man is that all nature is only the foliage, the flowering, & the fruit of the Soul and that every part therefore exists as emblem & sign, of some fact in the soul. […] The near explains the far; a drop of water tells all that is true of the ocean; a family will reveal the state & one man the All. The Reflective Age should make the greatest discoveries.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 5:365

I like not to have the day hurry away under me whilst I sit at my desk; I wish not reveries; I like to taste my time & spread myself through all the hour.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 5:362

The preacher enumerates his classes of men and I do not find my place therein. I suspect then that no man does. Every thing is my cousin, and when he speaks things, I immediately feel he is touching some of my relations, & I am uneasy, but whilst he deals in words I can slumber and sleep.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks 5:361