Explore, and explore. Be neither chided nor flattered out of your position of perpetual inquiry. Neither dogmatize or accept another's dogmatism.
Interpretation
The quote encourages a mindset of continuous exploration and questioning without succumbing to external influences or rigid beliefs.
Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes the importance of maintaining a curious and inquisitive attitude towards life. He advocates for intellectual independence, suggesting that individuals should avoid being swayed by societal pressures or dogmatic thinking, and instead, remain committed to exploring their own understanding and beliefs.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of critical thinking in education.
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?
I don't look at a knife the way I used to. I'm more aware of what it is. I think twice. This is a key finger. It's in every chord.
You yourself are the teacher, and the pupil, you're the master, you're the guru, you are the leader, you are everything! And, to understand is to transform what is.
In idleness there is a perpetual despair.
As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.
If you are offended by reading views that disagree with yours, then yes, you will be offended. However, it is not gratuitously offensive, it simply puts an argument, and if your views are strong enough, as I believe they are, you will be able to defend your views. You will not say, "Oh, it's offensive, it's offensive." You will say "No, you are wrong here and you are wrong here," and that's what you should do.
Understanding comes with life. As a man grows he sees life and death, he is happy and sad, he works, plays, meets people - sometimes it takes a lifetime to acquire understanding, because in the end understanding simply means having sympathy for people.
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