When I find lines in books that I really connect with, I underline them or mark the page they’re on so they’re easy to find if I need a little pick-me-up :) So, I just finished reading “Nature” by Ralph Waldo Emerson and (although I disagreed with a few viewpoints presented) it has some of the most truly beautifully written thoughts I’ve ever read aaand only underlining them didn’t seem like enough. So, voila! :) Some are things I really needed to hear, and others were simply beautifully written. There are many many more that I want to post, but, here’s just a few :)

“Words are infinite organs of the infinite mind.” 

“That law, when in the mind, is an idea. Its beauty is infinite. The true philosopher and the true poet are one, and a beauty, which is truth, and a truth, which is beauty, is the aim of both.” 

“He finds that the poet was no odd fellow who described strange and impossible situations, but that universal man wrote by his pen a confession true for one and true for all. “ 

“By a deeper apprehension, and not primarily by a painful acquisition of many manual skills, the artist attains the power of awakening other souls to a given activity.” 

“Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations.” 

“To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. For the eye is fastened on the life, and slights the circumstance.” 

“In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side.” 

“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.” 

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, thought it contradict every thing you said today.”

“Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath at every moment.” 

“Your genuine action will explain itself and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now.” 

“We are parlor soldiers. We shun the rugged battle of fate, where strength is born.” 

“The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home.” 

“Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare.” 

“…and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”