The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that martyrs gain honor through suffering and hardship.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote reflects on the profound respect and reverence associated with martyrs. It suggests that rather than being diminished or dishonored by their sacrifices, martyrs rise in stature and are celebrated through their trials. Each act of suffering is transformed into a form of recognition, as the pain endured is celebrated and immortalized, reinforcing the idea that their legacy of bravery and commitment to a cause far outweighs their suffering.
In practice
This quote could be shared at a memorial service to honor fallen heroes.
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?
It's tough, acting. You have to walk two lines of a tightrope. There's the all-consuming fear of failure: I'm about to fall flat on my face. There's that and there's also confidence - you have to be confident in order to try things - and they fight each other all the time.
In her heart she is a mourner for those who have not survived. In her soul she is a warrior for those who are now as she was then. In her life she is both celebrant and proof of women's capacity and will to survive, to become, to act, to change self and society. And each year she is stronger and there are more of her.
And I fell violently on my face.
It is not the intelligent woman v. the ignorant woman; nor the white woman v. the black, the brown, and the red, it is not even the cause of woman v. man. Nay, tis woman's strongest vindication for speaking that the world needs to hear her voice.
I had to endure the worst time of all in terms of racial discrimination in Hollywood when i first started out. It was inconcievable to American directors and producers that a Mexican woman could have a lead role.
For many child soldiers, war and violence are all they have ever known. If we don't take it upon ourselves to show them an alternative, then they're going to be soldiers forever, and they'll continue to be recruited and to participate in violence if another conflict starts five or 10 years down the road.
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