Pines a thousand years old. Every year they must go farther for them: they recede, like beavers and Indians, before the white man.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the gradual loss of natural and indigenous elements due to the expansion of society.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote highlights the inevitability of change and loss in nature, as ancient pines, symbolizing enduring natural beauty and the indigenous people, are forced to retreat in the face of advancing civilization represented by 'the white man.' This serves as a poignant reminder of the consequences of human progress on the environment and native cultures.
In practice
In a speech about environmental preservation, I might cite this quote to stress the importance of protecting our natural resources.
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?
I stood beside a hill_x000D_ _x000D_ Smooth with new-laid snow,_x000D_ _x000D_ A single star looked out_x000D_ _x000D_ From the cold evening glow._x000D_ _x000D_ There was not other creature_x000D_ _x000D_ That saw what I could see,_x000D_ _x000D_ I stood and watched the evening star_x000D_ _x000D_ As long as it watched me.
Atmosphere is a silent music. It has its effect upon the listener, exciting or peaceful, whatever it may be.
The Nile, draining out into the Mediterranean. The bright lights of Cairo announce the opening of the north-flowing river’s delta, with Jerusalem’s answering high beams to the northeast. This 4,258 mile braid of human life, first navigated end-to-end in 2004, is visible in a single glance from space.
Apparently there is a great discovery or insight which our culture is deliberately designed to suppress, distort, and ignore. That is that nature is some kind of minded entity. That nature is not simply the random flight of atoms through electromagnetic fields. Nature is not the empty, despiritualized , lumpen matter that we inherit from modern physics. But it is instead a kind of intelligence, a kind of mind.
Mother Earth is hurting. And she needs a generation of thoughtful, caring and active kids like all of you to protect her for the future.
In the animal kingdom, one of the keys to survival is to outwit your enemies. And when you're surrounded by carnivores, one of the best strategies is to fade into the background and disappear.
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