Cities give us collision. 'Tis said, London and New York take the nonsense out of a man.
Interpretation
Cities expose individuals to diverse ideas and experiences, stripping away pretense.
In this quote, Emerson suggests that urban environments like London and New York create an environment where people encounter a variety of perspectives and experiences that challenge their assumptions and social facades. The 'collision' of ideas and cultures in these cities promotes authenticity and a more genuine understanding of oneself, as the hustle and bustle of city life forces individuals to confront their biases and superficialities.
In practice
In a speech about urban life, one could highlight how cities like New York and London promote personal growth through conflict and diversity.
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?
God's pleasure--the beauty creation possesses in his regard--underlies the distinct being of creation, and so beauty is the first and truest word concerning all that appears within being; beauty is the showing of what is; God looked upon what he had wrought and saw that it was good.
Whosoever wishes to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details. Knowledge is not intelligence. In searching for the truth be ready for the unexpected. Change alone is unchanging. The same road goes both up and down. The beginning of a circle is also its end. Not I, but the world says it: all is one. And yet everything comes in season.
Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.
I'm one of those people that you have to keep your eye on or I'll wander off into the woods and forget to come back.
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day. What hours, O what black hours we have spent This night!
Thus Carol hit upon the tragedy of old age, which is not that it is less vigorous than youth, but that it is not needed by youth.
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