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?
It's the job of intellectuals and writers to cast doubt on perfection.
A culture is not the anonymous product of undifferentiate d masses, but the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men.
Hypocrisy means deliberately pretending. None of us lives up to his ideals; none of us is all that he would like to be or all that he could be in Christ. But that is not hypocrisy. Falling short of our ideals is not hypocrisy. Pretending we have reached our ideals when we have not - that is hypocrisy.
REALITY, n. The dream of a mad philosopher. That which would remain in the cupel if one should assay a phantom. The nucleus of a vacuum.
Life is like a book that never ends. Chapters close, but not the book itself.
The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.
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