We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.
Interpretation
Resisting temptation builds our strength and character.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that the challenges we face and the temptations we choose to resist contribute to our personal growth and resilience. Each time we resist an urge, we reinforce our ability to make choices aligned with our values and goals, thereby becoming stronger individuals.
In practice
In a motivational speech about 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?
Balance in large measure is knowing the things that can be changed, putting them in proper perspective, and recognizing the things that will not change."
When the human organism is discharging its negative experience efficiently, the mind is empty of past or future concerns; there is no worry, anticipation, or regret. This means that the mind is left open to Being, the simplest state of awareness.
Keep true to the rare music in your heart, to the marvelous and unique form that is and shall always be nothing else but you. Keep to that and you can do no wrong, which I realize is easier said than done.
Solve all your problems through meditation. Exchange unprofitable religious speculations for actual God-contact. Clear your mind of dogmatic theological debris; let in the fresh, healing waters of direct perception. Attune yourself to the active inner Guidance; the Divine Voice has the answer to every dilemma of life. Through man's ingenuity for getting himself into trouble appears to be endless, the Infinite Succor is no less resourceful.
When you have to prove the value of your ideas by persuading other people to pay for them, it clears out an awful lot of woolly thinking.
The only true retirement is that of the heart; the only true leisure is the repose of the passions. To such persons it makes little difference whether they are young or old; and they die as they have lived, with graceful resignation.
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