The first and last lesson of religion is, "The things that are seen, are temporal; the things that are unseen, are eternal." It puts an affront upon nature.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that physical, visible things are temporary, while spiritual and invisible truths possess eternal significance.
Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes the contrast between the temporary nature of material existence and the everlasting nature of spiritual truths. By asserting that the seen is temporal and the unseen is eternal, he suggests that true understanding and value lie beyond what is visible and tangible, challenging the reader to look deeper into the nature of existence and spirituality.
In practice
This quote can be used in a sermon to illustrate the importance of focusing on spiritual well-being over material wealth.
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?
Three conditions are necessary for Penance: contrition, which is sorrow for sin, together with a purpose of amendment; confession of sins without any omission; and satisfaction by means of good works.
O, call back yesterday, bid time return
Necessity has the face of a dog.
Angels speak. They appear and reappear. They feel with apt sense of emotion. While Angels may become visible by choice, our eyes are not conducted to see them ordinarily any more than we can see the dimensions of a nuclear field, the structure of atoms, or the electricity that flows through copper wiring.
I cannot too often repeat that Democracy is a word the real gist of which still sleeps, quite unawakened, notwithstanding the resonance and the many angry tempests out of which its syllables have come, from pen or tongue. It is a great word, whose history, I suppose, remains unwritten because that history has yet to be enacted.
I love to doubt as well as know.
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