If Christ should appear on earth he could on all hands be denounced as a mistaken, misguided man, insane and crazed.—Journal, 19 October 1859
In music are the centripetal and centrifugal forces. The universe needed only to hear a divine harmony that every star might fall into its proper place and assume a true sphericity.—Journal, 3 July 1840
In our science and philosophy, even, there is commonly no true and absolute account of things. The spirit of sect and bigotry has planted its hoof amid the stars. You have only to discuss the problem, whether the stars are inhabited or not, in order to discover it.—"Life Without Principle"
In reality, history fluctuates as the face of the landscape from morning to evening. What is of moment is its hue and color. Time hides no treasures; we want not its then, but its now. We do not complain that the mountains in the horizon are blue and indistinct; they are the more like the heavens.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
In summer it is the earth's liquid eye, a mirror in the breast of nature.—"A Winter Walk"
It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun. Man cannot know in any higher sense than this, any more than he can look serenely and with impunity in the face of the sun: Ὡς τὶ νοῶν, οὐ κεῖνον νοήσεις,—“You will not perceive that, as perceiving a particular thing,” say the Chaldean Oracles.—"Walking"
It will have some red stains, commemorating the mornings and evening it has witnessed; some dark and rusty blotches, in memory of the clouds and foggy, mildewy days that have passed over it; and a spacious field of green reflecting the general face of Nature,—green even as the fields; or a yellow ground, which implies a milder flavor,—yellow as the harvest, or russet as the hills.—"Wild Apples"
Knowledge does not come to us by details but by lieferungs from the gods.—Journal, 7 July 1851
Looking southward, the heavens were completely overcast, the mountains capped with clouds, and the lake generally wore a dark and stormy appearance, but from its surface six or eight miles distant there was reflected upward through the misty air a bright blue tinge from the unseen sky of another latitude beyond.—The Maine Woods
Love never stands still, nor does its object. It is the revolving sun and the swelling bud. If I know what I love, it is because I remember it.—Journal, 14 March 1842
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