Let him be great, and love shall follow him. Nothing is more deeply punished than the neglect of the affinities by which alone society should be formed, and the insane levity of choosing associates by others eyes.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that greatness and love are interconnected, and that choosing friends and associates wisely is crucial for a healthy society.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that true greatness naturally attracts love, and neglecting important personal connections is severely punished. He criticizes the superficiality of forming relationships based on others' perceptions rather than genuine affinities, highlighting the importance of authenticity in our social connections for a flourishing society.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about building meaningful relationships in a community.
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?
I wondered if she was trying to convey something to me, something she could not put into words - something prior to words that she could not grasp within herself and which therefore had no hope of ever turning into words.
I see interracial couples all the time in Nashville. I'm a Jew in Nashville. I'm a gay person in Nashville. It's a non-issue in most of the time. That's a huge leap forward.
Where there are no women there are no good manners
May the friends of America rejoice! May her enemies be humbled and her censors silenced at the news of her noble exertions in continuance of those principles which have placed her so high in the annals of history and among the nations of the earth.
I don't think homosexuality is a choice. Society forces you to think it's a choice, but in fact, it's in one's nature. The choice is whether one expresses one's nature truthfully or spends the rest of one's life lying about it.
If you want to influence people, you want them to accept your suggestions, you don't say, 'You don't know how to use the English language,' or 'How could you make that argument?' It will be welcomed much more if you have a gentle touch than if you are aggressive.
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