There is a third silent party to all our bargains. The nature and soul of things takes on itself the guaranty of the fulfillment of every contract, so that honest service cannot come to loss. If you serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is withholden, the better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of integrity and the belief that honest service will ultimately be rewarded, even if it seems unrecognized in the moment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote reminds us that there is an intrinsic value to honest work and service, regardless of whether the people we serve recognize it. He suggests that the universe, or a higher power, holds a record of our deeds and will ensure that our efforts are rewarded in due time, likening it to a debt that accrues compound interest. Thus, even when faced with challenges or ungratefulness, maintaining a spirit of service is valuable and ultimately beneficial to one's spiritual and moral integrity.
In practice
Use this quote in a motivational speech about the value of service and integrity in the workplace.
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?
We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.
To demand that others should provide you textbook prognoses is like asking a strange woman to give birth to your baby. There are insights that can be born only of your own pain, and they are the most precious.
Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.
Patience patience quotes is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
There are thousands of wines that can take over our minds. Don't think all ecstasies are the same!
A man should inure himself to voluntary labor, and not give up to indulgence and pleasure, as they beget no good constitution of body nor knowledge of mind.
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