The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity
Interpretation
One allows others to disturb their peace through their own curiosity and attention.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote suggests that people often give power to those who irritate them by being overly curious or concerned about their actions. It highlights the idea that our reactions to others can empower them to disturb our tranquility, and this self-awareness can lead to greater emotional resilience and autonomy.
In practice
In a public speech about mental health, one could use this quote to illustrate how we give others control over our emotions.
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 man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.
I'm gradually managing to cram my mind more and more full of things. I've got this beautiful mind and it's going to die, and it'll all be gone. And then I say, not in my case. Every idea I've ever had I've written down, and it's all there on paper. And I won't be gone; it'll be there.
Supposing is good, but finding out is better.
A few years ago I met an old professor at the University of Notre Dame. Looking back on his long life of teaching, he said with a funny wrinkle in his eyes: I have always been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I slowly discovered that my interruptions were my work.
It's not the problem that causes our suffering; it's our thinking about the problem.
Writer's block is a natural affliction. Writers who have never experienced it have something wrong with them. It means there isn't enough friction-that they aren't making enough of an effort to reconcile the contradictions of life. All you get is sweet monotonous flow. Writer's block is nothing to commit suicide over. It simply indicates some imbalance between your experience and your art, and I think that's constructive.
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