Important Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nature
"In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature...Yet it is certain that the power to produce this delight, does not reside in nature, but in man, or in a harmony of both. It is necessary to use these pleasures with great temperance. For, nature is not always tricked in holiday attire, but the same scene which yesterday breathed perfume and glittered as for the frolic of the nymphs, is overspread with melancholy today. Nature always wears the colors of the spirit. To a man laboring under calamity, the heat of his own fire hath sadness in it. Then, there is a kind of contempt of the landscape felt by him who has just lost by death a dear friend. The sky is less grand as it shuts down over less worth in the population." - Chapter 1 Nature. (To see full text of Nature, click on the first line of text)
Self-Reliance
"The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instil is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost, — and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment."- Opening paragraph of Self-Reliance
(To see full text of Self-Reliance, click on the first line of text)
(To see full text of Self-Reliance, click on the first line of text)