If a man will kick a fact out of the window, when he comes back he finds it again in the chimney corner.
Interpretation
Ignoring the truth does not erase its existence; it will always return.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson reflects the idea that one cannot simply dismiss or ignore facts and truths; they have a way of resurfacing, regardless of attempts to eliminate them. The metaphor of a fact returning from the chimney corner illustrates that the truth is persistent and will remain a part of reality, no matter how one tries to escape it.
In practice
In a discussion about climate change, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of acknowledging scientific facts.
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?
The things you refuse to meet today always come back at you later on, usually under circumstances which make the decision twice as difficult as it originally was.
You renew yourself every day. Sometimes you're successful, sometimes your not, but it's the average that counts.
It's OK to feel pain and experience it. I'm not trying to fix myself. My suffering has given me so much.
As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.
Whoever will cultivate their own mind will find full employment. Every virtue does not only require great care in the planting, but as much daily solicitude in cherishing as exotic fruits and flowers; the vices and passions (which I am afraid are the natural product of the soil) demand perpetual weeding. Add to this the search after knowledge. . . and the longest life is too short.
In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.