Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is like a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue. . . .
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the nature of life and perception, suggesting that our experiences are influenced by our moods and illusions.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote explores the idea that life is a series of experiences shaped by our feelings, much like a train of differing moods represented by colored beads. Each mood acts like a lens that colors our perspective of reality, implying that our understanding of life is subjective and contingent upon these moods and the illusions they create.
In practice
In a motivational speech about resilience and adaptation to life's challenges.
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 was unique in that I was a kind of black that white people could accept. I was their daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never for how great I was or what I contributed. It was because of the way I looked.
The philosopher is not a citizen of any community of ideas, that is what makes him a philosopher.
Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only change of worlds.
If you're honest, you sooner or later have to confront your values. Then you're forced to separate what is right from what is merely legal. This puts you metaphysically on the run. America is full of metaphysical outlaws.
There is superficial conflict but deep concord between science and theistic religion, but superficial concord and deep conflict between science and naturalism
Religion is everywhere. There are no human societies without it, whether they acknowledge it as a religion or not.
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