Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that one must choose between seeking truth and remaining in a state of comfort or ignorance.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote suggests that all individuals face a pivotal decision: to pursue the often challenging and uncomfortable path of truth or to cling to the comforting but ultimately deceptive state of repose. This dichotomy highlights the inherent struggle between the desire for knowledge and the tendency to avoid discomfort, asserting that one cannot simultaneously embrace both options. In essence, true growth and understanding require sacrifices and a willingness to confront reality, no matter how unsettling it may be.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal growth, one could quote this to inspire people to face uncomfortable truths.
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?
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.
We must not only obtain Wisdom: we must enjoy her.
For any practice to work, the mind which is meditating on the object must merge. Often they are facing each other. One has to become completely absorbed, then the transformation will occur.
I want to state upfront, unequivocally and without doubt: I do not believe that any racial, ethnic or gender group has an advantage in sound judging. I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge, regardless of their background or life experiences.
The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually fearing that you'll make one.
The smallest atom of truth represents some man's bitter toil and agony; for every ponderable chunk of it there is a brave truth-seeker's grave upon some lonely ash-dump and a soul roasting in hell.
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