Only as far as the masters of the world have called in nature to their aid, can they reach the height of magnificence. This is the meaning of their hanging-gardens, villas, garden-houses, islands, parks, and preserves.
Interpretation
Human magnificence is achieved by harnessing the power of nature.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes that the greatness and splendor achieved by humanity are directly linked to our ability to work in harmony with nature. He illustrates this connection by referencing grand creations, like hanging gardens and parks, which serve as examples of how human ingenuity, when united with the natural world, can create beauty and magnificence.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about sustainable living and the importance of preserving nature.
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?
It's very important that we keep these special, wild places. It defines the United States. Imagine our country without our national parks and our monuments. Here in California, imagine if you didn't have in Southern Cal the Channel Islands or the great Highway 1, Big Sur up to Point Reyes up to the Redwood country.
Nature hides her secrets because of her essential loftiness, but not by means of ruse.
Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.
January gray is here, like a sexton by her grave; February bears the bier, march with grief doth howl and rave, and April weeps -- but, O ye hours! Follow with May's fairest flowers.
Blessed be the Lord for the beauty of summer and spring, for the air, the water, the verdure, and the song of birds.
Look at the stars! Look, look up at the skies! Oh look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air! The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
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