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?
The wisdom of the wise is an uncommon degree of common sense.
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience.
Truth is so rare that it is delightful to tell it.
When I come upon a man who has a gleaming, empty, clear desktop, I am dealing with a fellow who is so far removed from the realities of his business that someone else is running it for him.
If you look around the room, and you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.
Reformers who are always compromising, have not yet grasped the idea that truth is the only safe ground to stand upon.
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