If thou fill thy brain with Boston and New York, with fashion and covetousness, and wilt stimulate thy jaded senses with wine and French coffee, thou shalt find no radiance of wisdom in the lonely waste of the pinewoods.
Interpretation
True wisdom is not found in material pursuits or distractions, but in the simplicity of nature.
In this quote, Emerson emphasizes that excessive focus on urban life, materialism, and sensory pleasures detracts from one's ability to attain true wisdom. Instead, he suggests that solitude in nature, represented by the 'lonely waste of the pinewoods,' is where deeper understanding and insight can be found.
In practice
This quote can be shared at a gathering focused on the importance of reconnecting with nature.
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?
Time is the coin of our live. We must take care how we spend it.
In every adversity there lies the seed of an equivalent advantage. In every defeat is a lesson showing you how to win the victory next time.
As I get considerably beyond the biblical allotment of three score years and ten, I feel with increasing intensity that I can express my gratitude for still being around on the oxygen-side of the earth's crust only by not standing pat on what I have hitherto known and loved. While oxygen lasts, there are still new things to love, especially if compassion is a form of love.
But there is another danger besetting your path. I mean the error of regarding your own capacities instead of your work, of putting self-consciousness in place of God.
Be a good human being, a warm-hearted affectionate person. That is my fundamental belief. Having a sense of caring, a feeling of compassion will bring happiness of peace of mind to oneself and automatically create a positive atmosphere.
Humility is not disgraceful, and carries no loss of true pride.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.