Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.
Interpretation
Our character is constantly expressed, even in our subtler moments.
Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that people often believe they only reveal their moral or immoral qualities through direct actions. However, he emphasizes that our virtue or vice is always present and can be sensed or perceived by others in every moment of our existence.
In practice
In a speech about personal values, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of consistency between words and actions.
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?
God hath work to do in this world; and to desert it because of its difficulties and entanglements, is to cast off His authority. It is not enough that we be just, that we be righteous, and walk with God in holiness; but we must also serve our generation, as David did before he fell asleep. God hath a work to do; and not to help Him is to oppose Him.
Many people feel small because they're small and the universe is big, but I feel big.
Many things, for aught I know, may exist, whereof neither I nor any other man hath or can have any idea or notion whatsoever.
There may not be one Truth - there may be several truths - but saying that is not to say that reality doesn't exist.
A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!
We anticipate a time when the love of truth shall have come up to our love of liberty, and men shall be cordially tolerant and earnest believers both at once.
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