A Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson on life, nature, observer, and universe

The universe is a more amazing puzzle than ever, as you glance along this bewildering series of animated forms, - the hazy butterflies, the carved shells, the birds, beasts, fishes, snakes, and the upheaving principle of life everywhere incipient, in the very rock aping organized forms.  Not a form so grotesque, so savage, nor so beautiful but is an expression of some property inherent in man the observer, - an occult relation between the very scorpions and man.  I feel the centipede in me, - cayman, carp, eagle, and fox.  I am moved by strange sympathies; I say continually, "I will be a naturalist."