A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue.
Interpretation
True beauty is revealed when one embraces virtue with an open heart and mind.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that the most profound and enchanting beauty emerges when an individual cultivates a deep appreciation for virtue. It implies that the opening of our hearts and minds to virtuous principles allows us to perceive a beauty that transcends the superficial, enriching our experience of life and the world around us.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a discussion on the importance of moral values in personal growth.
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 poor self-image is the magnifying glass that can transform a trivial mistake or an imperfection into an overwhelming symbol of personal defeat.
My soul, never laugh at sin's fooleries, lest thou come to smile at sin itself. It is thine enemy, and thy Lord's enemy.
One must indeed be ignorant of the methods of genius to suppose that it allows itself to be cramped by forms. Forms are for mediocrity, and it is fortunate that mediocrity can act only according to routine. Ability takes its flight unhindered.
There is no discovery without risk and what you risk reveals what you value.
Honesty with ourselves & others gets us sober, but it is tolerance that keeps us that way.
Sometimes you just have to bite your upper lip and put sunglasses on.
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