Life will show you masks that are worth all your carnivals
Interpretation
Life brings many experiences and events that reveal true value beyond superficiality.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that throughout life, people will encounter various situations and 'masks' that serve as metaphors for the roles and facades individuals wear. These experiences can provide profound insights and meaning that are far more valuable than the fleeting joys of superficial celebrations, like carnivals. Ultimately, it highlights the importance of looking beyond appearances to find genuine truths in life.
In practice
In a speech about personal growth, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of recognizing deeper truths in our experiences.
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?
There is no such thing as closure, and it wouldn't be worth having if it were available, because all it would mean is that something that was quite an important part of you had gone numb.
The question of whether there exists a Creator and Ruler of the Universe has been answered in the affirmative by some of the highest intellects that have ever existed.
It's a weird city because the uglier the weather, the more beautiful the city. And the uglier the buildings, the more coherent the city.
To plunder, to lie, to show your arse, are three essentials for climbing high.
Let every man of whatsoever craft or occupation he be of... serve his brethren.
There is magic in my universe, but it's pretty low magic compared to other fantasies.
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