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?
To boast of a performance which I cannot beat is merely stupid vanity. And if I can beat it that means there is nothing special about it. What has passed is already finished with. What I find more interesting is what is still to come.
There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all its virtues are of no avail.
I have tried to be a man of letters in love with ideas in order to be a wiser and more loving person, hoping to leave the world just a little better than I found it.
Every search begins with beginner’s luck. And every search ends with the victor’s being severely tested.
It is better to hide ignorance, but it is hard to do this when we relax over wine.
Our misery is that we thirst so little for these sublime things, and so much for the mocking trifles of time and space.
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