I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.
By: Ralph Waldo Emerson
I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.
So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, — What is truth? and of the affections, — What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will. ... 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. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit.
Context:
The closing of Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1836 essay "Nature".
As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.
This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.