When good is near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall not discern the foot-prints of any other; you shall not see the face of man; you shall not hear any name; the way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new. It shall exclude example and experience.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that true goodness and life come from a unique and personal journey, unfiltered by past experiences or societal examples.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote reflects the idea that the essence of goodness and vital life experiences are not found through imitation of others or established norms. Instead, they manifest as fresh encounters that are distinctively one’s own. Emerson invites us to embrace the unfamiliar and the novel aspects of our journey, suggesting that true fulfillment and understanding come from original thought and personal discovery rather than relying on past examples or societal expectations.
In practice
In a motivational speech about self-discovery, one might quote Emerson to reinforce the idea that true understanding comes from personal experience rather than societal norms.
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?
It's an old principle, as old as the Buddha or Marcus Aurelius: We need at times to step away from our lives in order to put them in perspective. Especially if we wish to be productive.
Though sin often brings immediate pleasure, it gives no lasting joy.
Whoever travels without a guide, needs two hundred years for a two-day journey.
If you trained jiu-jitsu his whole life, why would you trade punches on fight night against a striker?
When we think too much about the opinions of others, we are letting them edit a book God has written.
There's a way that the force of disappointment can be alchemized into something that will paradoxically renew you.
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