Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it and had his being there. Alone in all history, he estimated the greatness of man.
Interpretation
The quote highlights Jesus Christ's profound understanding of the human soul and his unique appreciation for humanity's greatness.
Ralph Waldo Emerson reflects on Jesus Christ as a true prophet who possessed a deep insight into the mysteries of the soul. He suggests that Jesus not only recognized the inherent beauty and harmony of the soul but also lived fully within this understanding, setting him apart in history for his extraordinary recognition of the greatness of mankind.
In practice
This quote could be used in a sermon to illustrate the divine insight of Jesus.
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?
Past, present and future are not amenities of language. Time unfolds into the seamsof being. It passes through you, making and shaping.
If we assume the best in people, we can radically redesign our democracy and welfare states.
Were not the disadvantages of slavery too obvious to stand in need of it, I might enumerate and describe the tedious train of calamities inseparable from it. I might show that it is fatal to religion and morality; that it tends to debase the mind, and corrupt its noblest springs of action. I might show that it relaxes the sinews of industry, clips the wings of commerce, and introduces misery and indigence in every shape.
He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.
[I believe] that animals have a worth in and of themselves, and that they are not inferior to human beings but rather just different from us, and that they really don't exist for us nor do they belong to us...it should not be a question of how they should be treated within the context of their usefulness, or perceived usefulness, to us, but rather whether we have a right to use them at all.
A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.
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