At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say,—'Come out unto us.' But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act.
Interpretation
Emerson emphasizes the importance of maintaining inner peace despite external distractions and demands.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson reflects on the overwhelming nature of worldly distractions and pressures that seek to pull individuals away from their inner state of tranquility. He advises against succumbing to these external calls for attention and instead advocates for the preservation of one's own composure and focus. Emerson asserts that the annoyance we feel from others arises from allowing them access to our minds through curiosity and engagement. Thus, by asserting our autonomy and not yielding to chaos, we can maintain a sense of personal power and clarity.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal empowerment and focus.
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?
If we could be twice young and twice old we could correct all our mistakes.
The key is the ability, whether innate or conditioned, to find the other side of the rote, the picayune, the meaningless, the repetitive, the pointlessly complex. To be, in a word, unborable... It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.
Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have.
Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter, wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others who are within his sphere of action: and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life.
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.
I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.
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