I am grown by sympathy a little eager and sentimental, but leave me alone, and I should relish every hour and what it brought me, the pot-luck of the day, as heartily as the oldest gossip in the bar-room.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the importance of appreciating life's moments, whether they bring joy or challenge.
In this quote, Emerson expresses a sentiment about the richness of experience and the human condition. He suggests that while he may be influenced by sympathy and sentimentality, he thrives when left to engage with life on his own terms, savoring each moment for what it brings. The metaphor of 'the pot-luck of the day' implies a diversity of experiences, and he emphasizes a sincere enjoyment of life, much like the casual camaraderie found in a social setting like a bar-room.
In practice
This quote could inspire a speech at a life celebration event.
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?
People should watch out for three things: avoid a major addiction, don't get so deeply into debt that it controls your life, and don't start a family before you're ready to settle down.
I don't want to die an old lady.
People are released from prison so unprepared. They give you $200. We call it gate money. And you have to pay for a bus ticket back to L.A. You get off the Greyhound bus, downtown Skid Row, and you're supposed to make a life from that.
Men dislike being awakened from their death in life.
And what if thou, sweet May, hast known_x000D_ _x000D_ Mishap by worm and blight;_x000D_ _x000D_ If expectations newly blown_x000D_ _x000D_ Have perished in thy sight;_x000D_ _x000D_ If loves and joys, while up they sprung,_x000D_ _x000D_ Were caught as in a snare;_x000D_ _x000D_ Such is the lot of all the young,_x000D_ _x000D_ However bright and fair.
Even though I'm seventeen, I guess I still thought this would always be true - that there would always be that lost-and-found, and not the lost-and-still-lost that I am now trapped inside.
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