In failing circumstances no one can be relied on to keep their integrity.
Interpretation
In difficult situations, people often compromise their principles.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote highlights the fragility of integrity when faced with challenging circumstances. It suggests that during tough times, individuals may succumb to pressure and abandon their moral values, indicating that true integrity is tested under adversity.
In practice
In discussions about business ethics, this quote could be used to highlight the importance of maintaining integrity under pressure.
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?
It is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.
St. Louis sprawls where mighty rivers meet - as broad as Philadelphia, but three stories high instead of two, with wider streets and dirtier atmosphere, over the dull-brown of wide, calm rivers. The city overflows into the valleys of Illinois and lies there, writhing under its grimy cloud.
War is both the product of an earlier corruption, and a producer of new corruptions.
May we look upon our treasure, the furniture of our houses, and our garments, and try to discover whether the seeds of war have nourishment in these our possessions.
Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists.
Do not paint a picture either of God or the devil on your walls: this will ruin both your walls and the atmosphere.
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