Great men or men of great gifts you shall easily find, but symmetrical men never.
Interpretation
Emerson suggests that while we often find extraordinary individuals, truly balanced and well-rounded people are rare.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson reflects on the nature of greatness and balance in human character. He posits that while society may celebrate individuals with exceptional talents, achievements, or gifts, those who embody symmetry—meaning balance, moderation, and holistic development across various aspects of life—are much harder to encounter. This commentary invites readers to consider the value of being well-rounded over merely excelling in one area.
In practice
In a discussion about personal development, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of being well-rounded.
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?
All the particular moral judgments we intuitively make are likely to derive from discarded religious systems, from warped views of sex and bodily functions, or from customs necessary for the survival of the group in social and economic circumstances that now lie in the distant past.
Adults...struggle desperately with fiction, demanding constantly that it conform to the rules of everyday life. Adults foolishly demand to know how Superman can possibly fly, or how Batman can possibly run a multibillion-dollar business empire during the day and fight crime at night, when the answer is obvious even to the smallest child: because it's not real.
By the anxieties and worries of this life Satan tries to dull man's heart and make a dwelling for himself there.
I can understand the Chinese Wall: it was built as a defense against marauders. But a wall such as that in Berlin, built to prevent people from seeking freedom, is almost beyond comprehension.
I like to walk about among the beautiful things that adorn the world; but private wealth I should decline, or any sort of personal possessions, because they would take away my liberty.
When I was young, I had to choose between the life of being and the life of doing. And I leapt at the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. Or wonder who, after all, you are.
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