We see God face to face every hour, and know the savor of Nature.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the profound connection between humanity and the natural world, suggesting that we encounter the divine through our experiences in nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes the spiritual and transformative experiences we have in nature, suggesting that every moment spent observing and engaging with the natural world brings us closer to the divine. By recognizing and savoring these moments, we can experience a deeper understanding of life and a sense of connection to something greater than ourselves.
In practice
During a speech at a nature conservation event, a speaker might quote this to emphasize the importance of preserving our natural environments.
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?
Human beings grew up in forests; we have a natural affinity for them. How lovely a tree is, straining toward the sky.
Nature never said to me: Do not be poor; still less did she say: Be rich; her cry to me was always: Be independent.
A lot of people think they need to give up nature to become adults but that's not true. However, you have to be careful how you describe and define 'nature.'
To hike out alone in the desert; to sleep on the valley floor on a night with no moon, in the pitch black, just listening to the boom of silence: you can't imagine what that's like.
There's no palette as rich as a garden. And the intensity of it - I make this statement all the time: You can't plan nature; you court her.
When I was two, a dragonfly flew near me. A man knocked it to the ground and trod on it. I remember crying because I'd caused the dragonfly to be killed.
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