Pines a thousand years old. Every year they must go farther for them: they recede, like beavers and Indians, before the white man.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the gradual loss of natural and indigenous elements due to the expansion of society.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote highlights the inevitability of change and loss in nature, as ancient pines, symbolizing enduring natural beauty and the indigenous people, are forced to retreat in the face of advancing civilization represented by 'the white man.' This serves as a poignant reminder of the consequences of human progress on the environment and native cultures.
In practice
In a speech about environmental preservation, I might cite this quote to stress the importance of protecting our natural resources.
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?
Prize the natural spaces and shorelines most of all, because once they're gone, with rare exceptions they're gone forever. In our bones we need the natural curves of hills, the scent of chapparal, the whisper of pines, the possibility of wildness. We require these patches of nature for our mental health and our spiritual resilience.
Nature is a book, a letter, a fairy tale (in the philosophical sense) or whatever you want to call it.
Many a night I saw the Pleiads,_x000D_ _x000D_ Rising thro' the mellow shade,_x000D_ _x000D_ Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies,_x000D_ _x000D_ Tangled in a silver braid.
As I grew up I was fervently desirous of becoming acquainted with Nature.
Instead of water we got here a draught of beer, a lumberer's drink, which would acclimate and naturalize a man at once,-which would make him see green, and, if he slept, dream that he heard the wind sough among the pines.
Tell the Earth how much you care, how beautiful she is, and how much you love her. Ask for her forgiveness for having been so careless.
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