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?
There is no subjection so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom.
FREEBOOTER, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.
There are the stars--doing their old, old crisscross journeys in the sky. Scholars haven't settled the matter yet, but they seem to think there are no living beings out there. Just chalk... or fire. Only this one is straining away, straining away all the time to make something of itself. Strain's so bad that every sixteen hours everybody lies down and gets a rest.
I would certainly end up forever crying the blues into a coffee cup in a park for old men playing chess or silly games of some sort.
We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.
The Vedas give information on various subjects. They have come together and form one book. And in later times, when other subjects were separated from religion - when astronomy and astrology were taken out of religion - these subjects, being connected with the Vedas and being ancient, were considered very holy.
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