There are men too superior to be seen except by a few, as there are notes too high for the scale of most ears.
Interpretation
Only a select few can recognize the true greatness in others, just as only certain notes can be perceived by trained ears.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote suggests that true excellence and superiority often go unnoticed by the majority of people, similar to how only a few people can hear the highest musical notes. This highlights the idea that greatness can exist beyond the understanding or awareness of the general population, and it requires a discerning eye or ear to recognize such exceptional qualities in individuals.
In practice
During a speech on leadership, you might say, 'As Ralph Waldo Emerson noted, there are men too superior to be seen except by a few.'
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 are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate: when he can't afford it, and when he can.
Where there is no vision, there is no hope.
Selection is the very keel on which our mental ship is built. And in this case of memory its utility is obvious. If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing.
One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other.
Whatever authority I may have rests solely on knowing how little I know.
He who is surety is never sure himself. Take advice, and never be security for more than you are quite willing to lose. Remember the word of the wise man: He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it; and he that hateth suretyship is sure.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.