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?
A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.
What I fear and desire most in this world is passion. I fear it because it promises to be spontaneous, out of my control, unnamed, beyond my reasonable self. I desire it because passion has color, like the landscape before me. It is not pale. It is not neutral. It reveals the backside of the heart.
I know nothing, because I know too much, and understand not nearly enough and never will.
Things that look like shortcuts are actually detours (disguised as less work).
Screwing things up is a virtue. Being correct is never the point. I have an almost fanatically correct assistant, and by the time she re-spells my words and corrects my punctuation, I can't read what I wrote. Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea.
You are made in the image of what you desire.
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