What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.
Interpretation
Inner strength and character are more important than past experiences or future possibilities.
This quote emphasizes the significance of our inner qualities over external circumstances. It suggests that the value of who we are internally far surpasses the weight of our past experiences or what may come in the future. Emerson encourages us to look within and recognize our inner strengths as the true measure of our worth and potential.
In practice
During a motivational speech to inspire resilience in students.
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?
Once we recognize the fact that every individual is a treasury of hidden and unsuspected qualities, our lives become richer, our judgement better, and our world is more right. It is not love that is blind, it is only the unnoticing eye that cannot see the real qualities of people.
When the rhythms of our body-mind are in synch with nature's rhythms, when we are living in harmony with life, we are living in the state of grace. To live in grace is to experience that state of consciousness where things flow effortlessly and our desires are easily fulfilled. Grace is magical, synchronistic, coincidental, joyful. It's that good-luck factor. But to live in grace we have to allow nature's intelligence to flow through us without interfering.
We must not allow other people's limited perceptions to define us.
For the people who ostensibly wish me well or are worried about my immortal soul, I say I take it kindly.
When I learnt to write I became my own master, I became very strong, and that strength is with me to this very day.
Maybe it'll stop you trying to be so desperate about making more money than you can ever use? You can't take it with you, Mr. Kirby. So what good is it? As near as I can see, the only thing you can take with you is the love of your friends.
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