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?
I must be cruel, only to be kind.
War gives the right to the conquerors to impose any condition they please upon the vanquished.
Most people have stereo vision, so why belittle that very, very important element of our existence?
For benefits return benefits; for injuries return justice without any admixture of revenge.
In May 1961, South Africa was to be declared a Nationalist Republic. There was a white referendum, but no African was consulted.
Going around this country, I have found a great hunger in America for spiritual revival; for a belief that law must be based on a higher law; for a return to traditions and values that we once had. Our government, in its most sacred documents - the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and all - speak of man being created, of a Creator; that we're a nation under God.
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