Welcome! I am a contemplative thinker and photographer from Colorado. In this blog, you'll discover photographs that I've taken on my hiking and backpacking trips, mostly in the American West. I've paired these with my favorite inspirational and philosophical quotes - literary passages that emphasize the innate spirituality of the natural world. I hope you enjoy them!

If you'd like to purchase photo-quote greeting cards, please go to www.NaturePhoto-QuoteCards.com .


In the Spirit of Wildness,

Stephen Hatch
Fort Collins, Colorado

P.S. There's a label index at the bottom of the blog.

Friday, September 23, 2011

True Success is Having No Followers


"I have been writing and speaking for twenty-five or thirty years, and have have not now even one disciple.  Why?  Not that what I said was not true; not that it has not found intelligent receivers; but because it did not go forth from any wish in me to bring people to me, but rather to themselves.  I delight in driving them from me . . .This is my boast: that I have no school followers.  I should account it a measure of the impurity of my insight, if it did not create independence."

(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Photo: A hidden sun highlights bigtooth maple leaves, Redwood National Park, CA, 2011

2 comments:

  1. Stephan.. thank you for sharing this incredible photo and having the insight to put Emerson's quote with it... Deeply appreciated.
    Moe Ross
    www.miographies.com

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  2. You're welcome, Moe! I believe Emerson's insight is desperately needed in our time, when "success" is judged in rather superficial ways.

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