To a dull mind all of nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.
Interpretation
The way we perceive the world depends on our mental clarity and openness.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson highlights the contrast between a closed, dull mindset and an enlightened, open one. It suggests that those who are mentally engaged and enlightened can see beauty and vibrancy in the world around them, while those with a dull mind may perceive everything as heavy and lifeless.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational speech to inspire people to open their minds to new experiences.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
Perhaps the single most important thing that we can do to undo the harm we have done is to fix firmly in our minds the thought: the earth is alive.
The ocean is an object of no small terror.
Meditate, oft. Separate thyself for a season from the cares of the world. Get close to nature and learn from the lowliest of that which manifests in nature, in the earth; in the birds, in the trees, in the grass, in the flowers, in the bees; that the life of each is a manifesting, is a song of glory to its Maker. And do thou likewise!
People are beginning to realize that we need to live in accordance with the law of ecology, the law of finite resources, and if we don't, we're going to go extinct.
We have become a force of nature.
A few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the air, and hover downward with uncertain flight, now almost alighting on the earth, now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere.
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