Date: September 10, 1836

"In my utter impotence to test the authenticity of the report of my senses, to know whether the impressions they make on me correspond with outlying objects, what difference does it make, whether Orion is up there in heaven, or some god paints the image in the firmament of the soul?"

— Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)

Date: September 10, 1836

"Whether nature enjoy a substantial existence without, or is only in the apocalypse of the mind, it is alike useful and alike venerable to me."

— Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)

Date: September 10, 1836

"The first effort of thought tends to relax this despotism of the senses, which binds us to nature as if we were a part of it, and shows us nature aloof, and, as it were, afloat."

— Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)

Date: September 10, 1836

"When the eye of Reason opens, to outline and surface are at once added, grace and expression."

— Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)

Date: September 10, 1836

"Whilst we wait in this Olympus of gods, we think of nature as an appendix to the soul."

— Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)

Date: September 10, 1836

"These are examples of Reason’s momentary grasp of the sceptre; the exertions of a power which exists not in time or space, but an instantaneous in-streaming causing power."

— Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)

Date: 1841

"It is the solar system of the mind."

— Marx, Karl (1818-1883)

Date: November 24, 1859

"Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume under the form of an abstract, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite...

— Darwin, Charles (1809-1882)

Date: November 24, 1859

"A few naturalists, endowed with much flexibility of mind, and who have already begun to doubt on the immutability of species, may be influenced by this volume; but I look with confidence to the future, to young and rising naturalists, who will be able to view both sides of the question with impa...

— Darwin, Charles (1809-1882)