The great will not condescend to take anything seriously.
Interpretation
Seriousness is often a sign of greatness, as the truly great individuals do not trivialize life.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that individuals of great stature or talent do not waste their time with trivial matters. Instead, they rise above petty concerns and maintain a perspective of seriousness about life. The great understand the importance of meaningful engagement rather than getting bogged down by the mundane or less significant aspects of existence.
In practice
This quote could be used in a motivational speech to emphasize the importance of focusing on serious goals.
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?
We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction.
In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.
What do you want to avoid? Such an easy answer: sloth and unreliability. If you're unreliable it doesn't matter what your virtues are. You're going to crater immediately. Doing what you have faithfully engaged to do should be an automatic part of your conduct. You want to avoid sloth and unreliability.
Avoid a sugared gospel as you would shun sugar of lead. Seek the gospel which rips up and tears and cuts and wounds and hacks and even kills, for that is the gospel that makes alive again. And when you have found it, give good heed to it. Let it enter into your inmost being. As the rain soaks into the ground, so pray the Lord to let his gospel soak into your soul.
There are men and women who make the world better just by being the kind of people they are. They have the gift of kindness or courage or loyalty or integrity. It really matters very little whether they are behind the wheel of a truck or running a business or bringing up a family. The teach the truth by living it.
Nothing is so easy as to deceive oneself; for what we wish, we readily believe.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.