A note from Emerson

My AP English II class does weekly College-Bound vocabulary exercises. This is from one of the lessons and, after reading it three or four times, I have decided to post it on my blog because I like it so much. Read it, ponder it. Just food for thought...


Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say "I think I am," but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my willow make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are what they are: they exist with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Its nature is satisfied and it satisfied nature in all moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson
from: Self-Reliance