Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.
Interpretation
Society often pressures individuals to conform rather than embrace their unique qualities.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that society creates an environment where individuality and self-reliance are stifled in favor of conformity. Emerson emphasizes that this societal conspiracy undermines the essence of manhood and the value of true creativity and reality, promoting a preference for established names and customs over genuine self-expression and originality.
In practice
During a speech about personal growth, you might use this quote to emphasize the importance of staying true to oneself.
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?
History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.
In the end, the aggressors always destroy themselves, making way for others who know how to cooperate and get along. Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity.
The past is already gone, the future is not yet here. There's only one moment for you to live, and that is the present moment
If thou suffer injustice, console thyself; the true unhappiness is in doing it.
Something wonderful begins to happen with the simple realization that life, like an automobile, is driven from the inside out, not the other way around. As you focus more on becoming more peaceful with where you are, rather than focusing on where you would rather be, you begin to find peace right now, in the present. Then, as you move around, try new things, and meet new people, you carry that sense of inner peace with you. It's absolutely true that, "Wherever you go, there you are.
There's hostility to lying, and there should be.
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