If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era?
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the transformative power of revolution, highlighting the juxtaposition of the old and the new.
Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes the importance of living in a time of revolution, where individuals can witness and compare the fading histories of the past alongside the promising potentials of the future. This era of transformation evokes strong feelings of fear and hope, prompting humanity to confront its past glories while embracing the opportunities that change brings.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a discussion on social change and transformation.
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?
I see the energy of young people as a real force for positive change.
The adjacent possible is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself.
When there's a disappointment, I don't know if it's the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure.
We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance.
Good pain is pain in the service of a purpose. Bad pain is pain endured because we are resisting a needed growth step.
I remember back in the 1960s - late '50s, really - reading a comic book called 'Martin Luther King Jr. and the Montgomery Story.' Fourteen pages. It sold for 10 cents. And this little book inspired me to attend non-violence workshops, to study about Gandhi, about Thoreau, to study Martin Luther King, Jr., to study civil disobedience.
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