A man is like a bit of Labrador spar, which has no lustre as you turn it in your hand until you come to a particular angle; then it shows deep and beautiful colors. There is no adaptation or universal applicability in men, but each has his special Talent, and the mastery of Successful men consists in adroitly keeping themselves where and when that turn shall be oftenest to be practiced.
Interpretation
People have unique talents that may not always be visible until placed in the right circumstances.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson highlights the idea that every individual possesses special talents that might remain hidden until they are in the right environment or situation. Just as a piece of Labrador spar reveals its beauty from a specific angle, a person's true potential can be recognized when positioned correctly. Emerson suggests that successful individuals know how to place themselves in situations that allow their unique abilities to shine, demonstrating the importance of opportunity and context in realizing one's capabilities.
In practice
During a motivational speech about finding your strengths.
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 tend to become more emotionally intelligent as they age and mature.
Armenian folklore has it that three apples fell from Heaven: one for the teller of a story, one for the listener, and the third for the one who 'took it to heart.' What a pity Heaven awarded no apple to the one who wrote the story down.
Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner.
She regarded books as the emblems of secret brotherhood. A man with this sort of library couldn't possibly hurt her.
Most of us are taught from an early age to pay far more attention to signals coming from other people than from within. We are encouraged to ignore our own needs and wants and to concentrate on living up to others expectations.
The children would remember for the rest of their lives the august solemnity with which their father, devastated by his prolonged vigil and by the wraith of his imagination, revealed his discovery to them: 'The world is round, like an orange.
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