Nature is the incarnation of thought. The world is the mind precipitated.
Interpretation
Nature embodies our thoughts and ideas, reflecting the workings of the mind in the physical world.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that nature is not just a backdrop to human existence but a manifestation of our innermost thoughts and ideas. He implies that the natural world serves as a reflection of the human mind, where our intellectual and emotional processes shape and influence the environment around us.
In practice
In a discussion about environmental protection, this quote can emphasize the importance of connecting with nature.
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?
Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature. Necessity is the theme and inventress of nature, her curb and her eternal law.
To drown a river beneath its own impounded water, by damming, is to kill what it was and to settle for something else. When the damming happens without good reason . . . then it's a tragedy of diminishment for the whole planet, a loss of one more wild thing, leaving Earth just a little flatter and tamer and simpler and uglier than before.
Truly, we do live on a 'water planet.' For us, water is that critical issue that we need. It's the most precious substance on the planet, and it links us to pretty much every environmental issue, including climate change, that we're facing.
Ecology and economy are becoming inextricably entwined, and the world is becoming more conscious of this fact.
The question is, are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?
The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides.
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