Quotes about Reflection

In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life,—no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground,—my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.

The true poem is the poet's mind; the true ship is the ship-builder.

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new. Shall I not call God the beautiful, who daily showeth himself so to me in his gifts?

I have no expectation that any man will read history aright, who thinks that what was done in a remote age, by men whose names have resounded far, has any deeper sense than what he is doing to-day.

If a person is constantly reading and absorbing the thoughts of others, their growth will be stunted. In order to fully develop, we need periods of solitude, self-inquiry, and recovery.

I would put myself in the attitude to look in the eye an abstract truth, and I cannot. I blench and withdraw on this side and on that. I seem to know what he meant who said, No man can see God face to face and live.

If thou fill thy brain with Boston and New York, with fashion and covetousness, and wilt stimulate thy jaded senses with wine and French coffee, thou shalt find no radiance of wisdom in the lonely waste of the pinewoods.

The condition of true naming, on the poet's part, is his resigning himself to the divine aura which breathes through forms, and accompanying that.

There is then creative reading as well as creative writing

Silence is a solvent that destroys personality, and gives us leave to be great and universal.