The masses have no habit of self-reliance or original action.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that many people tend to rely on others rather than acting independently or taking initiative.
Ralph Waldo Emerson critiques the collective mindset of society, emphasizing that most individuals lack the courage and habit to think and act for themselves. This behavior leads to a reliance on the influence of others, eroding personal originality and self-reliance, which are essential qualities for individual growth and authentic living.
In practice
This quote can be used in a debate about individuality versus conformity.
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?
Reality lies in the greatest enchantment you have ever experienced.
The difficulty for most of us in the modern world is that the old-fashioned idea of God has become incredible or implausible.
Human rights pale beside the rights of machines. In more and more cities, especially in the great metropolises of the South, people have been banned. Automobiles usurp human space, poison the air, and frequently murder the interlopers who invade their conquered territory -and no one lifts a finger to stop them. Is there a difference between violence that kills by car and that which kills by knife or bullet?" (p.231)
The way you live your days is the way you live your life.
For me, disability is a physical experience, but it's also a cultural experience and a social experience, and for me, the word 'crip' is the one that best encapsulated all of that.
To people like me, educated in post-war Britain, free speech has been a firm premise of the British way of life.
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