The basis of good manners is self-reliance.
Interpretation
Good manners stem from an individual's confidence in themselves.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that true good manners are not merely about following social conventions, but rather about having a strong sense of self-reliance. When individuals believe in their own worth and capabilities, they naturally exhibit respectful behavior towards others, indicating that self-assuredness fosters genuine courtesy and respect in social interactions.
In practice
During a speech about personal development at a leadership conference.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
The ductless glands secrete among other things our moods, our aspirations, our philosophy of life.
No work nor deed of ours whatsoever, no not faith itself, can be the condition of the covenant of grace properly so called; but only Christ's fulfilling all righteousness.
Did you ever notice how difficult it is to argue with someone who is not obsessed with being right?
I was thinking of my patients, and how the worst moment for them was when they discovered they were masters of their own fate. It was not a matter of bad or good luck. When they could no longer blame fate, they were in despair.
Rhianon, he said, hold my hand, Rhianon. She did not hear him, but stood over his bed and fixed him with an unbroken sorrow. Hold my hand, he said, and then: why are your putting the sheet over my face?
Man has always been his own most vexing problem.
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