Nothing in nature is exhausted in its first use...In God, every end is converted into a new means.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that nothing in nature is fully depleted after its first use; instead, it points to a cycle of renewal and reuse, especially relating to divine influence.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote emphasizes the idea that resources in nature are not consumed entirely through initial usage. Instead, nature possesses an inherent ability to regenerate and transform, indicating a profound relationship between endings and new beginnings. This reflects a philosophical view that in a divinely orchestrated universe, every conclusion offers a chance for a new opportunity, illustrating the continuous flow of life and existence.
In practice
To inspire someone during a graduation speech about lifeβs new opportunities.
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?
What other species now require of us is our attention. Otherwise, we are entering a narrative of disappearing intelligences.
Every live thing is a survivor on a kind of extended emergency bivouac.
Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?
I like to think_x000D_ (it has to be!)_x000D_ of a cybernetic ecology_x000D_ where we are free of our labors_x000D_ and joined back to nature,_x000D_ returned to our mammal_x000D_ brothers and sisters,_x000D_ and all watched over_x000D_ by machines of loving grace.
Like a shadow that does not permit us to jump over it, but moves with us to maintain its proper distance, pollution is nature's answer to culture. When we have learned to recycle pollution into potent information, we will have passed over completely into the new cultural ecology.
It helps to think of soil as a living organism covered with skin like a human. We can live with a certain percentage of our skin damaged, but if too high a percentage is damaged, we die. So, too, does soil and thus most life
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