We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.
Interpretation
We often fail to fully express our true selves due to fear or societal pressures.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson reflects on the idea that each person carries a unique and divine essence within them. However, many individuals struggle to fully express their true selves, often feeling ashamed or constrained by societal expectations and personal vulnerabilities. Emerson encourages us to embrace our individuality and recognize the inherent value in the ideas and identities we represent.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational speech about embracing one's true self.
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?
God gave us free will, and we may choose to exercise it in ways that end up hurting other people.
We're setting up mechanisms where we can kill human beings with drones and missiles where you're sitting at a console and pressing the button. We never have to hear their whimpering, or hear them begging for their mother, or dying in horrible realities around us. I don't know if that's necessarily such a good thing.
The priceless heritage of our society is the unrestricted constitutional right of each member to think as he will. Thought control is a copyright of totalitarianism, and we have no claim to it.
The mask, given time, comes to be the face itself
The Vedas teach that the soul is divine, only held in the bondage of matter; perfection will be reached when this bond will burst, and the word they use for it is, therefore, Mukti - freedom, freedom from the bonds of imperfection, freedom from death and misery.
The world acquires value only through its extremes and endures only through moderation; extremists make the world great, the moderates give it stability.
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