I wish to say what I think and feel today, with the proviso that tomorrow perhaps I shall contradict it all.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the idea that thoughts and feelings are subject to change over time.
Ralph Waldo Emerson expresses the fluid nature of human thought and emotion in this quote. He acknowledges that while he wishes to express his current beliefs and feelings honestly, he also recognizes that these may evolve or change in the future, highlighting the transient nature of perception and understanding.
In practice
In a discussion about personal growth and the evolution of beliefs.
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?
Among irrational animals the love of the offspring and of the parents for each other is extraordinary because God, who created them, compensated for the deficiency of reason by the superiority of their senses.
A thousand policemen directing traffic cannot tell you why you come or where you go.
The vast numbers of people who suffer some kind of mental illness under capitalism can either think, 'there is some failing with me, if only I could fit into this system better, if only I were working harder, if only I could enjoy these empty pleasures more, then things would be OK' or 'the problem is with the system that is making me ill.'
Once upon a time men were possessed by devils. Now they are not less obsessed by ideas
When I got religion, I found some work to do to benefit somebody.
It is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice. For they cannot live in any country where virtue and knowledge prevail. The religion and public liberty of a people are intimately connected; their interests are interwoven, they cannot subsist separately; and therefore they rise and fall together. For this reason, it is always observable, that those who are combin'd to destroy the people's liberties, practice every art to poison their morals.
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