No man is its enemy. It accepts whatsoever befalls, as part of its lesson. It is a watcher more than a doer, and it is a doer, only that it may the better watch.
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836). copy citation

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Author Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source Nature
Topic enemies lesson
Date 1836
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nature,_Addresses_and_Lectures/Nature

Context

“and, very incurious concerning persons or miracles, and not at all disturbed by chasms of historical evidence, it accepts from God the phenomenon, as it finds it, as the pure and awful form of religion in the world. It is not hot and passionate at the appearance of what it calls its own good or bad fortune, at the union or opposition of other persons. No man is its enemy. It accepts whatsoever befalls, as part of its lesson. It is a watcher more than a doer, and it is a doer, only that it may the better watch. ​ CHAPTER VII. SPIRIT. 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 wherein all his faculties find appropriate and endless exercise.” source