A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.
Interpretation
The people we choose to associate with reflect our personal development.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that the friends we surround ourselves with play a significant role in our growth as individuals. It implies that as we evolve in life, our friendships change, reflecting our values, aspirations, and the kind of person we are becoming. The idea is that those we choose to befriend can influence our journey, offering both support and challenges that encourage us to grow.
In practice
During a speech at a graduation ceremony, one could quote this to emphasize the importance of choosing supportive friends.
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?
Let us drink together, fellows, as we did in days of yore. And still enjoy the golden hours that Fortune has in store; The absent friends remembered be, in all thatβs sung or said, And Love immortal consecrate the memory of the dead.
When I recollect the treasure of friendship that has been bestowed upon me I withdraw all charges against life. If much has been denied me, much, very much has been given. So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart I shall say that life is good.
The story, from beginning to end, I found again in a heart of a friend.
We fought in 1974 - that was a long time ago. After 1981, we became the best of friends. By 1984, we loved each other. I am not closer to anyone else in this life than I am to Muhammad Ali. Why? We were forged by that first fight in Zaire, and our lives are indelibly linked by memories and photographs, as young men and old men.
We cannot always assure the future of our friends; we have a better chance of assuring our future if we remember who our friends are.
He liked the works of his friends, which is beautiful as loyalty but can be disastrous as judgement.
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