Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Contemplation

• Nothing divine dies. All good is eternally reproductive. The beauty of Nature re-forms itself in the mind, and not for barren contemplation, but for new creation.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Mind, Creation, Nature Beauty

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2006). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays, Lectures and Poems”, p.25, Bantam Classics

• Prayer that craves a particular commodity—anything less than all good, is vicious. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to effect a private end is theft and meanness. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Prayer, Mean, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Essays and English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.81, Cosimo, Inc.

• Idealism sees the world in God. It beholds the whole circle of persons and things, of actions and events, of country and religion,not as painfully accumulated, atom after atom, act after act, in an aged creeping Past, but as one vast picture, which God paints on the instant eternity, for the contemplation of the soul.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Country, Past

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.60, Harvard University Press

• What is addressed to us for contemplation does not threaten us, but makes us intellectual beings.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Thinking, Thoughtful, Intellectual

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1964). “The Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.58, Harvard University Press

• The virtue of art lies in detachment, in sequestering one object from the embarrassing variety. Until one thing comes out from theconnection of things, there can be enjoyment, contemplation, but no thought.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Lying, Thoughtful

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.276, Modern Library

• Empirical science is apt to cloud the sight, and, by the very knowledge of functions and processes, to bereave the student of themanly contemplation of the whole.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, Clouds, Sight

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.66, Harvard University Press

• Every discourse is an approximate answer: but it is of small consequence, that we do not get it into verbs and nouns, whilst it abides for contemplation forever.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Truth, Forever, Verbs

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.294, Harvard University Press

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