In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with his legs.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the idea of vitality and energy in youth versus the limitations of aging.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote suggests that in the morning of life, which symbolizes youth and vitality, a person is full of energy and engages with the world in a more holistic manner. As one ages, represented by the evening, the physical abilities may decline, leading a person to function more merely through their legs, emphasizing the loss of a more dynamic engagement with life.
In practice
During a philosophical discussion about the stages of life.
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?
We must have done something very wicked before we were born, or else we must be going to be very happy indeed when we are dead, for God to let this life have all the tortures of expiation and all the sorrows of an ordeal.
Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful.
Asked whether or not he believed in an afterlife, Thoreau quipped, "One world at a time."
Fortune, not wisdom, rules lives.
In the fullness of time, educated people will believe there is no soul independent of the body, and hence no life after death.
It is important to look at death because it is a part of life. It is a sad thing, melancholy but romantic at the same time. It is the end of a cycle - everything has to end. The cycle of life is positive because it gives room for new things.
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