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A subtle chain of countless ringsThe next unto the farthest brings;The eye reads omens where it goes,And speaks all languages the rose;And, striving to be man, the wormMounts through all the spires of form. Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchr...

An Oration delivered before the Society of the Adelphi, in Waterville College, Maine, August 11, 1841 GENTLEMEN, Let us exchange congratulations on the enjoyments and the promises of this literary anniversary. The land we live in has no interest so dear, if ...

“Ne te quaesiveris extra.” “Man is his own star; and the soul that canRender an honest and perfect man,Commands all light, all influence, all fate;Nothing to him falls early or too late.Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,Our fatal shadows that walk...

There is no great and no smallTo the Soul that maketh all:And where it cometh, all things are;And it cometh everywhere. I am owner of the sphere,Of the seven stars and the solar year,Of Caesar’s hand, and Plato’s brain,Of Lord Christ’s heart, and Shakspeare...

A Lecture read before the Mercantile Library Association, Boston, February 7, 1844 GENTLEMEN: It is remarkable, that our people have their intellectual culture from one country, and their duties from another. This false state of things is newly in a way to b...

A Lecture read at the Masonic Temple, Boston,January, 1842 The first thing we have to say respecting what are called "new views" here in New England, at the present time, is, that they are not new, but the very oldest of thoughts cast into the mould of these ...

A Lecture delivered at the Masonic Temple, Boston, December 9, 1841 The two parties which divide the state, the party of Conservatism and that of Innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made. This quarrel is t...

Read at the Masonic Temple, Boston, December 2, 1841 The times, as we say — or the present aspects of our social state, the Laws, Divinity, Natural Science, Agriculture, Art, Trade, Letters, have their root in an invisible spiritual reality. To appear in thes...

A Lecture read before the Mechanics' Apprentices' Library Association, Boston, January 25, 1841 Mr. President, and Gentlemen, I wish to offer to your consideration some thoughts on the particular and general relations of man as a reformer. I shall assume tha...

An Oration delivered before the Literary Societies of Dartmouth College, July 24, 1838 GENTLEMEN, The invitation to address you this day, with which you have honored me, was so welcome, that I made haste to obey it. A summons to celebrate with scholars a lit...

Whoever considers the final cause of the world, will discern a multitude of uses that result. They all admit of being thrown into one of the following classes; Commodity; Beauty; Language; and Discipline. Under the general name of Commodity, I rank all those ...

Delivered before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, Sunday Evening, July 15, 1838 In this refulgent summer, it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life. The grass grows, the buds burst, the meadow is spotted with fire and gold in the tint of...

An Oration delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, August 31, 1837 Mr. President and Gentlemen, I greet you on the re-commencement of our literary year. Our anniversary is one of hope, and, perhaps, not enough of labor. We do not meet for ...

In inquiries respecting the laws of the world and the frame of things, the highest reason is always the truest. That which seems faintly possible — it is so refined, is often faint and dim because it is deepest seated in the mind among the eternal verities. Em...

It is essential to a true theory of nature and of man, that it should contain somewhat progressive. Uses that are exhausted or that may be, and facts that end in the statement, cannot be all that is true of this brave lodging wherein man is harbored, and where...

Thus is the unspeakable but intelligible and practicable meaning of the world conveyed to man, the immortal pupil, in every object of sense. To this one end of Discipline, all parts of nature conspire. A noble doubt perpetually suggests itself, whether this e...

In view of the significance of nature, we arrive at once at a new This use of the world includes the preceding uses, as parts of itself. Space, time, society, labor, climate, food, locomotion, the animals, the mechanical forces, give us sincerest lessons, day...

Language is a third use which Nature subserves to man. Nature is the vehicle, and threefold degree. Words are signs of natural facts. Particular natural facts are symbols of particular spiritual facts. Nature is the symbol of spirit. 1. Words are signs o...

A nobler want of man is served by nature, namely, the love of Beauty. The ancient Greeks called the world [kosmos], beauty. Such is the constitution of all things, or such the plastic power of the human eye, that the primary forms, as the sky, the mountain, t...

The wings of Time are black and white,Pied with morning and with night.Mountain tall and ocean deepTrembling balance duly keep.In changing moon, in tidal wave,Glows the feud of Want and Have.Gauge of more and less through spaceElectric star and pencil plays....