Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins
Interpretation
The presence of others often leads to insincerity in our words and actions.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that while an individual may express genuine thoughts and feelings when alone, the dynamics change upon the arrival of another person. In social situations, external pressures and the desire to be perceived positively can lead to a façade, highlighting the inherent struggle between our true selves and the personas we create in the presence of others.
In practice
In a discussion about authenticity in relationships during a workshop.
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?
Peace visits not the guilty mind.
There's a very committed effort to convert the US into something resembling a Third World society, where a few people have enormous wealth and a lot of others have no security.
We came to enjoy; we are being enjoyed. We came to rule; we are being ruled. We came to work; we are being worked. All the time, we find that. And this comes into every detail of our life.
Between history and the eternal I have chosen history because I like certainties. Of it, at least, I am certain, and how can I deny this force crushing me.
No matter how long you stand there examining yourself naked before a mirror, you'll never see reflected what's inside.
Often when religious leaders come together, they talk about a particular sexual ethic, or an abstruse doctrine, as though this, rather than compassion, was the test of spiritual life.
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