When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; ... he learns his ignorance, is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill.
Interpretation
Adversity can lead to personal growth and self-awareness.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson illustrates the idea that challenges and hardships often serve as important learning experiences. When a person faces adversity, they are given the opportunity to recognize their limitations and overcome the arrogance of thinking they are infallible, ultimately leading to personal development and mastery in their endeavors.
In practice
During a motivational speech about resilience in the face of challenges.
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?
Give me a smart idiot over a stupid genius any day.
You are the untold story. You are the impassioned truth wanting to scream its existence, to be forever trapped by a strong hand clapped firmly over the mouth of my soul.
Sometimes it seems especially difficult to submit to "great tribulation" when we look around and see others seemingly much less obedient who triumph even as we weep. But time is measured only unto man, says Alma (see Alma 40:8), and God has a very good memory.
How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things?
Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior's world.
All men's gains are the fruit of venturing.
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