As long as civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter, and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men.
Interpretation
Civilization centered around property leads to disillusionment, while true wealth is about shared experiences.
Ralph Waldo Emerson critiques a civilization focused solely on property and exclusivity, suggesting that this approach breeds discontent and a lack of genuine joy. He emphasizes that true wealth comes from experiences that are accessible to all, implying that community and shared enjoyment are the real measures of prosperity, rather than material possessions that create barriers between people.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about wealth inequality during a charity 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?
Whiteness in a racist, corporate-controlled society is like having the image of an American Express Cardstamped on one's face: immediately you are “universally accepted.”
The conception of gods originated in fear and curiosity. Primitive man, unable to understand the phenomena of nature, and harassed by them, saw in every terrifying manifestation some sinister force expressly directed against him; and as ignorance and fear are the parents of all superstition, the troubled fancy of primitive man wove the God idea.
One side of me is very busy paying attention to the details of life, the humanity of people, catching the street voices, the middle-class, upper-middle-class secret lives of Turks. The other side is interested in history and class and gender, trying to get all of society in a very realistic way.
Almost as swiftly as he had imagined it, she had torn her clothes off, and when she flung them aside it was with that same magnificent gesture by which a whole civilization seemed to be annihilated.
The virtuous man contents himself with dreaming that which the wicked man does in actual life.
Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared.
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