To have played and laughed with enthusiasm, and sung with exultation - this to to have succeeded.
Interpretation
Success is defined by the joy and enthusiasm experienced in activities, rather than by traditional accomplishments.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that true success lies in the joy and enthusiasm one experiences while engaging in life's activities. Rather than measuring success by conventional standards such as wealth or status, Emerson emphasizes the importance of finding joy in playing, laughing, and singing, highlighting that these moments of passion and happiness are what truly define a successful life.
In practice
During a graduation speech, this quote could inspire students to pursue their passions over conventional measures of success.
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?
The currency of real networking is not greed but generosity.
Money won't create success, the freedom to make it will.
I'm the one who has made all the sacrifices. Those are my American records, not the country's.
Focus is scary—until you realize that it only means turning your back on markets you could never have anyway. Sharp focus on jobs that customers are trying to get done holds the promise of greatly improving the odds of success in new-product development.
A big man has no time really to do anything but just sit and be big.
Success in investing doesn’t correlate with I.Q. Once you are above the level of 25; once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.
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