What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.
Interpretation
Our desires are within reach if we pursue them; avoiding our fears only causes them to persist.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that what we actively search for in life can be attained, while the things we avoid or run away from will continue to linger and affect us. It encourages individuals to confront their challenges and desires, as facing them will lead to fulfillment and resolution, whereas evading them only prolongs their existence in our lives.
In practice
In a motivational speech about facing fears and pursuing dreams.
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 most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion.
Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone.
We have a habit of turning to scientists when we want factual answers and artists when we want entertainment, but where are the facts about the nature of the self? Neurologists peering at PET scans and fMRIs know they aren't seeing the soul in there.
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison.
Being stuck in adolescence - that's a hell. 'Peter Pan' is a dystopia, and we forget that. Neverland is a bad place to be.
Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.
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