It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Interpretation
True greatness lies in maintaining one’s individuality amidst societal pressures.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote emphasizes the challenge of preserving one's independence of thought and spirit while being surrounded by societal norms and expectations. Living according to the opinions of others may be straightforward, and solitude allows for personal truth, but true greatness emerges when one can balance these forces and remain true to oneself even in the company of many. It celebrates the strength required to uphold one's individuality and values in the face of external pressures.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational speech aimed at young leaders about staying true to their values.
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?
Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria. Wait a minute. "Once upon a time" is how all the best children's stories begin, and "prostitute" is a word for adults. How can I start a book with this apparent contradiction? But since, at every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss, let's keep that beginning.
I hope to see the two great religions, Islam and Christianity, hand-in-hand, embracing each other. Then the Torah and the Bible and the Qur’an will become books supporting one another being read everywhere, and respected by every nation … [I am] looking forward to seeing Muslims read the Torah and the Bible.
The only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths.
More than its utilitarian and technocratic transparency, it is the opaque ambivalence of its oddities that makes the city livable.
Blessed is the servant who esteems himself no more highly when he is praised and exalted by people than when he is considered worthless, foolish, and to be despised; since what a man is before God, that he is and nothing more.
The truth is humbling, terrifying, and often exhilarating. It blows the doors off the hinges and fills the world with fresh air.
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