“Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not 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?”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (verified)
Nature (Primary source)
This is considered Emerson’s foundational text and the cornerstone of American Transcendentalism. In it, he outlines his philosophy of nature as a source of spiritual insight and a mirror to the human soul. It calls for an original relation to the universe and a rejection of traditional ways of understanding the world.
“The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (verified)“In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (verified)“The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power: but they who do not the thing have not the power.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (verified)“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (verified)More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson →
“You will be careful, if you are wise; how you touch men's religion, or credit, or eyes.”
— Benjamin Franklin (verified)“The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power: but they who do not the thing have not the power.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (verified)“Art is a jealous mistress, and, if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture, or philosophy, he makes a bad husband, and an ill provider.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (verified)“Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature.”
— Leonardo da Vinci (verified)