Have mountains, and waves, and skies, no significance but what we consciously give them, when we employ them as emblems of our thoughts?
Interpretation
The meaning we assign to nature is shaped by our thoughts and perspectives.
In this quote, Emerson reflects on how the natural elements of mountains, waves, and skies do not possess inherent significance; rather, their meaning arises from the way we choose to interpret and represent them in relation to our thoughts and emotions. This underscores the power of human perception and the subjective nature of meaning in the world around us.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of perspective in art, this quote can illustrate how artists imbue meaning into their work based on their thoughts.
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?
I've always believed in the adage that the secret of eternal youth is arrested development.
If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.
The story of Mary of Magdalene reminds us all of a fundamental truth...A disciple of Christ is one who, in the experience of human weakness, has had the humility to ask for his help, has been healed by him and has set out following closely after him, becoming a witness of the power of his merciful love that is stronger than sin and death.
What we do not make conscious emerges later as fate.
Like a dog, he hunts in dreams.
Now therefore, that my mind is free from all cares, and that I have obtained for myself assured leisure in peaceful solitude, I shall apply myself seriously and freely to the general destruction of all my former opinions.
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