Throw a stone into the stream and the ripples that propagate themselves are the beautiful type of all influence.
Interpretation
Our actions create far-reaching effects on the world around us.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson highlights the interconnectedness of our actions and their consequences. Just as a stone creates ripples in water, each decision we make can influence others and create a chain reaction, emphasizing the importance of being mindful of our impact on the world and those around us.
In practice
In a lecture on social responsibility, one might reference this quote to emphasize the importance of considering how our actions affect others.
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?
This very heart which is mine will forever remain indefinable to me. Between the certainty I have of my existence and the content I try to give to that assurance, the gap will never be filled. Forever I shall be a stranger to myself.
War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.
You can rest assured that if you devote your time and attention to the highest advantage of others, the Universe will support you, always and only in the nick of time.
No man understands the Scriptures, unless he be acquainted with the Cross.
As for slavery, there is no need for me to speak of its bad aspects. The only thing requiring explanation is the good side of slavery. I do not mean indirect slavery, the slavery of proletariat; I mean direct slavery, the slavery of the Blacks in Surinam, in Brazil, in the southern regions of North America. Direct slavery is as much the pivot upon which our present-day industrialism turns as are machinery, credit, etc. β¦ Slavery is therefore an economic category of paramount importance.
The response to war is to live like brothers and sisters. The response to injustice is to share. The response to despair is a limitless trust and hope. The response to prejudice and hatred is forgiveness. To work for community is to work for humanity. To work for peace is to work for a true political solution; it is to work for the Kingdom of God. It is to work to enable every one to live and taste the secret joys of the human person united to the eternal.
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