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?
If the outer world is diminished in its grandeur, then the emotional, imaginative, intellectual, and spiritual life of the human is diminished or extinguished. Without the soaring birds, the great forests, the sounds and coloration of the insects, the free-flowing streams, the flowering fields, the sight of clouds by day and the stars at night, we become impoverished in all that makes us human.
All the world was before me and every day was a holiday, so it did not seem important to which one of the world's wildernesses I first should wander.
Each stone, each bend cries welcome to him. He identifies with the mountains and the streams, he sees something of his own soul in the plants and the animals and the birds of the field.
Those trees are your lungs. The earth recycles as your body. The rivers recycle as your circulation. The air is your breath. So what do we call the environment?
Autumn clouds, vague and obscure; The evening, lonely and chill. I felt the dampness on my garments, But saw no spot, and heard no sound of rain.
We pull out of the ground death, we burn death in our power plants, and then we act shocked when we get death in the form of oil spills and global warming.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.