When I was praised I lost my time, for instantly I turned around to look at the work I had thought slightly of, and that day I made nothing new.
Interpretation
Praise can distract us from our creative process and hinder productivity.
This quote reflects on the idea that seeking and receiving praise can divert our attention from our work and creativity. Emerson suggests that when he was celebrated for his past achievements, he wasted time reflecting on them instead of focusing on producing new work, showing how external validation can be a hindrance to personal growth and innovation.
In practice
This quote can be used in a workshop about maintaining focus in creative processes.
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?
Practice yourself, for heaven's sake, in little things, and thence proceed to greater.
There is an unseen sweetness in the stomachβs emptiness. We are lutes. When the sound box is filled, no music can come forth. When the brain and the belly burn from fasting, every moment a new song rises out of the fire. The mists clear, and a new vitality makes you spring up the steps before you . . .
There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire imperfect and messy life.
As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation -- either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.
When it seems that God shows us the faults of others, keep on the safer side-it may be that your judgment is false. On your lips let silence abide. And any vice that you may ascribe to others, ascribe at once to them and yourself, in true humility. If that vice really exists in a person, he will correct himself better, seeing himself so gently understood, and will say of his own accord the thing that you would have said to him.
No matter how deep a study you make. What you really have to rely on is your own intuition and when it comes down to it, you really don't know what's going to happen until you do it.
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