I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be said of the dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen. There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade, for learned as well as for unlearned hands. And labor is everywhere welcome; always we are invited to work; only be this limitation observed, that a man shall not for the sake of wider activity sacrifice any opinion to the popular judgments and modes of action.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the value of labor and the dignity of work, regardless of social status or education.
Ralph Waldo Emerson highlights the importance of labor for all individuals, asserting that both skilled and unskilled workers contribute meaningfully to society. He calls for a recognition of the virtue found in manual work, while also cautioning against sacrificing personal beliefs for the sake of conforming to societal expectations. This perspective celebrates the intrinsic worth of labor and encourages individuals to embrace their unique contributions without fear of judgment.
In practice
During a speech on the importance of hard work in schools.
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?
In order to see, you have to stop being in the middle of the picture
It's about time we stopped buying things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like.
A holy life will produce the deepest impression. Lighthouses blow no horns; they only shine.
Our dignity is not in what we do, but what we understand.
Wisdom is probably the ability to cope. That's why someone who has to walk seven miles every day to get water for their children can be wiser than someone sitting behind a desk in Wall Street.
It's a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people. You can hold your tongue, and, moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own so that everybody else is so blind that they don't see or care.
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