“Build, therefore, your own world.

As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions…”

Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson is considered one of the most important philosophical works ever published.

With masterly eloquence, this soul-satisfying essay is a treasure.

Emerson writes about the extraordinary power of nature as a way of bringing the divine into our lives: a belief system that espouses a non-traditional appreciation of nature, or Transcendentalism.

Transcendentalism suggests that the divine, or God, suffuses nature—and therefore suggests that reality can only be understood by studying nature.

Emerson divides nature into four usages: Commodity, Beauty, Language and Discipline.

These distinctions define the ways by which humans use nature for their basic needs, their desire for delight, their communication with one another and their understanding of the world.

His philosophy called for harmony with—rather than domestication of—nature, and for reliance on individual integrity, rather than on materialistic institutions,

These beliefs are echoed in many of the great American philosophical and literary works of his time and ours, and have given incentive to modern political and social activism.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON (May 25, 1803 April 27, 1882) was an ordained minister, renowned orator, and beloved author and poet. He was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century, whose ideas on nature, philosophy, and religion influenced authors such as Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman. Through his writings, Emerson enthusiastically professed the importance of being an individual, resisting the comfort of conformity, and creating an art of living in harmony with nature.