"Rhodora! If the sages ask thee why..." - Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Rhodora! If the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.
More by Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The affections cannot keep their youth any more than men.”
“The dearest events are summer-rain.”
“This whole business of Trade gives me to pause and think, as it constitutes false relations between men; inasmuch as I am prone tocount myself relieved of any responsibility to behave well and nobly to that person who I pay with money, whereas if I had not that commodity, I should be put on my good behavior in all companies, and man would be a benefactor to man, as being himself his only certificate that he had a right to those aids and services which each asked of the other.”
More on Beauty
“Time doth transfix the flourish set on youthAnd delves the parallels in beauty's brow.”
“Eloquence; it requires the pleasant and the real; but the pleasant must itself be drawn from the true.”
“There is a delight in the hardy life of the open. There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy and its charm. The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased; and not impaired in value. Conservation means development as much as it does protection.”
More on Purpose
“In the end, money should serve something greater than just money. It should serve you, your family, the people you want to touch.”
“People want to be happy, isn't that right? Haven't you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren't they? Don't we keep them moving, don't we give them fun? That's all we live for, isn't it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of these.”
“We have not long to live in any event. Let us spend what is left in seeking the unpeopled world behind the sunrise.”