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?
A woman has a right to an abortion. That's a decision that's up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right.
I must dissent emphatically from any proposal to spend any money on preparing a statue of me, more especially at a time when people do not have enough food and clothing.
Every discourse, even a poetic or oracular sentence, carries with it a system of rules for producing analogous things and thus an outline of methodology.
Outside our consciousness there lies the cold and alien world of actual things. Between the two stretches the narrow borderland of the senses. No communication between the two worlds is possible excepting across the narrow strip. For a proper understanding of ourselves and of the world, it is of the highest importance that this borderland should be thoroughly explored.
USAGE, n. The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and Third being Custom and Conventionality. Imbued with a decent reverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to produce books that will live as long as the fashion.
What greater reassurance can the weak have than that they are like anyone else?
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