Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.
Interpretation
Committing a crime exposes one's vulnerabilities and consequences are visible for all to see.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that when a person engages in criminal behavior, they are metaphorically placed in a situation where their wrongdoings are transparent, akin to being on display. The idea of the earth being made of glass implies that their actions will not go unnoticed, and the repercussions of their crimes will be evident both to themselves and society, reinforcing the interconnectedness of individual actions and public perception.
In practice
In a discussion about the impact of crime on society, one might say, 'As Emerson wisely noted, commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.'
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?
We can conceive of eternity because we cannot conceive of a cessation of time. We can conceive of infinite space because we cannot conceive of so much matter that our imagination will not stand upon the farthest star and see infinite space beyond.
The big message of gospel is that you don't have to keep fighting the universe; you can stop, and the universe is quite good to you. There is a loss of ego.
Both our senses and our passions are a supply to the imperfection of our nature; thus they show that we are such sort of creatures as to stand in need of those helps which higher orders of creatures do not.
Pride is the utter poverty of soul disguised as riches, imaginary light where in fact there is darkness.
we follow One who stood and wept at the grave of Lazarus-not surely, because He was grieved that Mary and Martha wept, and sorrowed for their lack of faith (though some thus interpret) but because death, the punishment of sin, is even more horrible in his eyes than in ours.
History isn't what happened, history is just what historians tell us.
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