I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes. They have in themselves what they value in their horses, mettle and bottom.
Interpretation
Emerson highlights the steadfastness and resilience of the Englishman, drawing a parallel between people and horses.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes the strength of character that he perceives in Englishmen, suggesting that they possess an inherent quality of determination and endurance, akin to the attributes they appreciate in horses. By comparing men to horses, Emerson points out that both have qualities, such as 'mettle' (courage) and 'bottom' (stamina), which are valuable and essential for facing challenges in life.
In practice
During a motivational speech on overcoming challenges, one might quote Emerson to emphasize the importance of resilience.
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?
It isn't until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are - not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within - that you can begin to take control.
Egocentrism appears to us as a form of behavior intermediate between purely individual and socialized behavior.
I could not help feeling that they were evil things-- mountains of madness whose farther slopes looked out over some accursed ultimate abyss. That seething , half-luminous cloud-background held ineffable suggestions of a vague, ethereal beyondness far more than terrestrially spatial; and gave appalling reminders of the utter remoteness, separateness, desolation, and aeon-long death of this untrodden and unfathomed austral world.
Perhaps weβve never been visited by aliens because they have looked upon earth and decided thereβs no sign of intelligent life.
The concept of God in Jewish orthodoxy is one where you're having constant quarrels with God. Where I come from, in Islam, the only concept of God is you submit to Him and you obey His commands; no quarreling allowed.
The more the drive toward life is thwarted, the stronger is the drive toward destruction; the more life is realized, the less is the strength of destructiveness. Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life.
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