It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in a new day.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of present awareness over mere reliance on memory.
Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that wisdom lies in not solely depending on our memories, even when recalling past events. Instead, he advocates for using our present experiences and insights to evaluate the past, encouraging us to embrace each day as a new opportunity for growth and understanding.
In practice
This quote can be used during a seminar on personal development.
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'm proud of what I am and who I am, and I'm just going to be myself.
If a few minutes of suffering could make me so angry, what would years of it do? Even a stone can be worn down with enough rain.
To practice five things under all circumstances constitutes perfect virtue; these five are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.
Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first & we lose both first and second things.
A man must not always tell all, for that be folly; but what a man says should be what he thinks.
If you take the approach that “good” is not an accident - that everyone and everything that shows up in your life is there for a reason - you’ll begin to see every event (no matter how difficult or challenging) as a chance for enrichment and advancement in your life.
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