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?
Women's virtue is frequently nothing but a regard to their own quiet and a tenderness for their reputation.
America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government.
Everything is what it is, that's all. If we keep attaching meanings and mysteries to everything we perceive, everything we see that is, and to everything that goes on inside us, we are bound to go crazy sooner or later, I thought.
Beyond my anxiety, beyond this writing,_x000D_ the universe waits, inexhaustible, inviting.
Life will be wonderful when men no longer fear dying. When the last superstitions are thrown out and we meet death with the same equanimity as life. No longer will children's minds be twisted by evil gods whose fantastic origin is in those barbaric tribes who feared death and lightning, who feared life. That's it: life is the villain to to those who preach reward in death, through grace and eternal bliss, or through dark revenge.
The true nature of anything is what it becomes at its highest.
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