[W]e pity our fathers for dying before steam and galvanism, sulphuric ether and ocean telegraphs, photograph and spectrograph arrived, as cheated out… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Science does not know its debt to imagination. Goethe did not believe that a great naturalist could exist without this faculty. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Public opinion, I am sorry to say, will bear a great deal of nonsense. There is scarcely any absurdity so gross, whether… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
And, in fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature," become at last one maxim. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every known fact in natural science was divined by the presentiment of somebody, before it was actually verified. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The lessons of science should be experimental also. The sight of a planet through a telescope is worth all the course on… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
What terrible questions we are learning to ask! The former men believed in magic, by which temples, cities, and men were swallowed… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Though many painters and sculptors talk glibly of "going in for photography," you will find that very few of them can ever… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The motive of science was the extension of man, on all sides, into Nature, till his hands should touch the stars, his… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Astronomy is a cold, desert science, with all its pompous figures,-depends a little too much on the glass-grinder, too little on the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“If we will not be mar-plots with our miserable interferences, the work, the society, letters, arts, science, religion of men would go… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Nature may be as selfishly studied as trade. Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology; psychology, mesmerism (with intent to show where aour… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Science in England, in America, is jealous of theory, hates the name of love and moral purpose. There's revenge for this humanity.What… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The first steps in Agriculture, Astronomy, Zoology, (those first steps which the farmer, the hunter, and the sailor take,) teach that nature's… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Science was false by being unpoetical. It assumed to explain a reptile or a mollusk, and isolated it-which is hunting for life… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It is in the stomach of plants that development begins, and ends in the circles of the universe. 'Tis a long scale… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The poet alone knows astronomy, chemistry, vegetation, and animation, for he does not stop at these facts, but employs them as signs.… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Invention breeds invention. No sooner is the electric telegraph devised than gutta-percha, the very material it requires, is found. The aeronaut is… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
By virtue of this science the poet is the Namer, or Language-maker, naming things sometimes after their appearance, sometimes after their essence,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Natural science sharpens the discrimination. There is no false logic in nature. All its properties are permanent: the acids and metals never… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide. . . . Every influx of atheism, of skepticism, is… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We may climb into the thin and cold realm of pure geometry and lifeless science, or sink into that of sensation. Between… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If we will not interfere with our thought, but will act entirely, or see how the thing stands in God, we know the particular… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will or against his will he draws his portrait to the eye of his… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Consideration is the soil in which wisdom may be expected to grow, and strength be given to every up-springing plant of duty. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Another success is the post-office, with its educating energy augmented by cheapness and guarded by a certain religious sentimentin mankind; so that the power… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
No man can be criticised but by a greater than he. Do not, then, read the reviews. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Coal lay in ledges under the ground since the Flood, until a laborer with pick and windlass brings it to the surface. We may… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image