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?
Emotional self-awareness is the building block of the next fundamental emotional intelligence: being able to shake off a bad mood.
Refusing to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering of human life.
I think teaching a man to hate himself is much more criminal than teaching a man to hate someone else.
The weak overcomes the strong. The soft overcomes the hard. Everybody in the world knows this, still nobody makes use of it.
All composite things pass away. Strive for your own liberation with diligence.
The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn't thought about it.
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