"To speak truly, few adult persons can..." - Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson
To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and heart of the child.
More by Ralph Waldo Emerson
“I like sayers of no better than I like sayers of yes.”
“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think. This rule,equally arduous in actual and intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
“Teaching is the perpetual end and office of all things. Teaching, instruction is the main design that shines through the sky and earth.”
More on Nature
“The sea, washing the equator and the poles, offers its perilous aid, and the power and empire that follow it... ''Beware of me,'' it says, ''but if you can hold me, I am the key to all the lands.”
“The wild life of today is not ours to do with as we please. The original stock was given to us in trust for the benefit both of the present and the future. We must render an accounting of this trust to those who come after us.”
“Everything has its limit - iron ore cannot be educated into gold.”
More on Perception
“I was called a terrorist yesterday, but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists.”
“Why look in the dark for light?”
“The eye which can appreciate the naked and absolute beauty of a scientific truth is far more rare than that which is attracted by a moral one.”