We fancy men are individuals; so are pumpkins; but every pumpkin in the field goes through every point of pumpkin history.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that while we may see ourselves as unique individuals, we share common experiences and histories, much like pumpkins in a field.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote reflects on the nature of individuality versus shared experiences. He uses the metaphor of pumpkins, implying that, despite the superficial differences among individuals, there exists a shared journey or history that connects us all. Just as every pumpkin grows through various stages in its lifecycle, people undergo similar experiences that shape their existence, highlighting the intersection of uniqueness and universality in human life.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the nature of identity and community.
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?
Die gefährlichste Weltanschauung ist die Weltanschauung derer, die die Welt nie angeschaut haben. (The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have not viewed the world)
If we do not abide in prayer, we will abide in temptation.
Bodies do not produce sensations, but complexes of elements (complexes of sensations) make up bodies.
War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement
In this statement, my Scipio, I build on your own admirable definition, that there can be no community, properly so called, unless it be regulated by a combination of rights. And by this definition it appears that a multitude of men may be just as tyrannical as a single despot and indeed this is the most odious of all tyrannies, since no monster can be more barbarous than the mob, which assumes the name and mask of the people.
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-Paradise.
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