What we have learned from other becomes our own reflection.
Interpretation
We gain understanding and insight through the experiences and knowledge of others.
Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes the idea that our personal growth and knowledge are significantly shaped by the influences of those around us. This reflects the interconnectedness of human experience, where learning from others not only enhances our understanding but also becomes an integral part of our identity, shaping how we reflect on and interact with the world.
In practice
In a motivational talk about personal development.
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?
Be kind to people on the way up - you'll meet them again on your way down.
It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh - I really think that requires spirit. It's the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skillfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh - also if I win.
You can do one of two things; just shut up, which is something I don't find easy, or learn an awful lot very fast, which is what I tried to do.
I'll walk where my own nature would be leading: It vexes me to choose another guide.
A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.
The pain is what you make of it. You have to find something in it that yields. I understood my guiding imperative as: keep bleeding, but find some love in the blood.
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