One man pins me to the wall, while with another I walk among the stars
Interpretation
The quote contrasts the limitations imposed by others with the freedom and inspiration one can find in certain relationships.
Ralph Waldo Emerson reflects on the duality of human experience, where a negative relationship can confine and restrict one's potential, symbolized by being pinned to a wall, while a positive and uplifting relationship allows for exploration and joy, represented by walking among the stars. It highlights the impact that different individuals can have on our emotional and psychological states, emphasizing the importance of nurturing those connections that elevate us.
In practice
During a motivational speech about the value of supportive friendships.
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 relaxation should not be a method. You should not relax through a Yoga posture. This very understanding is relaxing, this very understanding is relaxation. You relax, effort disappears. You live your ordinary life - you chop wood and you carry water from the well and you cook food and you eat and you sleep and you love and you live ordinarily with no hankering and no desire for anything extraordinary.
It's outrageous to line your pockets off the misery of the poor; It's outrageous, the crimes some human beings must endure.
In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
The noblest of all studies is the study of what man is and of what life he should live.
I am optimistic when I consider the spiritual dimension which the scientist's discipline forces him to ignore.
Whenever you go through the length and breadth of our country... you see a long face: you will see the long face of an African woman because she's black, because she's poor.
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