His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the idea of forgiveness, emphasizing that a truly large heart cannot hold onto grudges or past wrongs.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson reflects on the nature of a loving and forgiving heart. He suggests that a heart capable of great love and compassion, akin to the vastness of the world, cannot find space for resentment or the memory of offenses. This speaks to the importance of letting go of past grievances in order to fully embrace love and positivity in life.
In practice
During a speech about personal growth, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of letting go of past hurts.
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?
Donβt be vain because you happen to have talent. You are not responsible for that; it was not of your doing. What you do with your talent is what matters.
When you love a problem, its contours, obstacles and resistances are all just part of its character.
I've learned that I must find positive outlets for anger or it will destroy me. There is a certain anger: it reaches such intensity that to express it fully would require homicidal rage--self destructive, destroy the world rage--and its flame burns because the world is so unjust. I have to try to find a way to channel that anger to the positive, and the highest positive is forgiveness.
The real scholar learns how to evolve the unknown from the known, and draws near the master.
The frail, vulnerable sounds of which we are capable seem to be essential to a later ability to roar like a lion without scaring everyone to death.
There's a reason you can learn from everything: you have basic wisdom, basic intelligence, and basic goodness.
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