Of all tools, an observatory is the most sublime. . . . What is so good in a college as an observatory? The sublime attaches to the door and to the first stair you ascent, that this is the road to the stars.
Interpretation
Emerson emphasizes the importance of observation and contemplation in achieving greater knowledge and understanding of the universe.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson reflects on the profound significance of observatories as tools for enlightenment and exploration. He suggests that an observatory’s purpose transcends mere scientific observation; it embodies the aspiration to reach for the stars and understand the cosmos, making it a sacred space of inquiry. By valuing such institutions, Emerson also highlights the importance of curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge in education, encouraging individuals to seek deeper truths in life.
In practice
In a graduation speech to inspire students to pursue their dreams.
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?
You always admire what you really don't understand. - Eleanor Roosevelt
The purpose of the guru is not to weaken your will. It is to teach you secrets of developing your inner power, until you can stand unshaken amidst the crash of breaking worlds.
Thus, when the lamp that lighted The traveller at first goes out, He feels awhile benighted, And looks around in fear and doubt. But soon, the prospect clearing, By cloudless starlight on he treads, And thinks no lamp so cheering As that light which Heaven sheds.
Much that we call evil is really good in disguises; and we should not quarrel rashly with adversities not yet understood, nor overlook the mercies often bound up in them.
Character is the essence of all that a man has seen in life and regards as high and exalted. Character is like truth: the substance of the things that a man has forgotten but the substance of the things that are worth remembering in life.
Anger does not solve anything; it builds nothing.
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