Quotes about Reflection

Why should I vapor and play the philosopher, instead of ballasting, the best I can, this dancing balloon?

Go out of the house to see the moon, and' t is mere tinsel; {it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey.

True love transcends the unworthy object, and dwells and broods on the eternal, and when the poor interposed mask crumbles, it is not sad, but feels rid of so much earth, and feels its independency the surer.

The ancestor of every action is a thought. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can.

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you

When you have worn out shoes, the strength of the shoe leather has passed into the fiber of your body. I measure your health by the number of shoes and hats and clothes you have worn out.

The shows of day, the dewy morning, the rainbow, mountains, orchards in blossom, stars, moonlight, shadows in still water, and the like, if too eagerly hunted, become shows merely, and mock us with their unreality. Go out of the house to see the moon, and 't is mere tinsel; it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey.

Oh, what have I to do with time?

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.