While driving, I was thinking about the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson that I had read earlier this morning... then looked up and to the left and saw the sign for Emerson Elementary School. Made me laugh.
A few gems from Nature:
NATURE
A subtle chain of countless rings
The next unto the farthest brings;
The eye reads omens where it goes,
And speaks all languages the rose;
And, striving to be man, the worm
Mounts through all the spires of form.
~~~~
"Why should n0t we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?
~~~
"...the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul."
~~
"To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society... But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars."
~
"If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile."
~~
"...few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun... 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."
~~~
"In the woods too, a man casts off his ears, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth."
