Life is short but there is always time for courtesy.
Interpretation
Life may be brief, but we should prioritize being courteous towards others.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes the importance of courtesy in our daily lives, despite the fleeting nature of time. It suggests that regardless of how short life may be, we should always take a moment to show kindness and respect to others, as these gestures can significantly impact their lives and our relationships.
In practice
In a speech about personal values, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of kindness.
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?
If I can't feel, if I can't move, if I can't think, and I can't care, then what conceivable point is there in living?
The impetus to grow and live intensely is so powerful in me I cannot resist it. I will work, I will love my husband, but I will fulfill myself.
Life has a certain flavor for those who have fought and risked all that the sheltered and protected can never experience.
That larger story in 'Salvage the Bones' is just about survival, and I think that, in the end, there are things about this novel and about these characters' experiences that make their stories universal stories.
I never knew what I wanted to do, but I knew the kind of woman I wanted to be.
If time were a bolt of cloth,β said Om, βI would cut out all the bad parts. Snip out the scary nights and stitch together the good parts, to make time bearable. Then I could wear it like a coat, always live happily.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.