I covet truth; beauty is unripe childhood's cheat; I leave it behind with the games of youth.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a desire for truth over superficial beauty, suggesting personal growth beyond youthful illusions.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson reflects on the importance of pursuing truth and wisdom as one matures. He contrasts the allure of beauty, which he equates to the naΓ―vetΓ© of childhood and youthful games, with the deeper and more meaningful pursuit of truth that comes with maturity. Emerson suggests that while beauty may charm and captivate in youth, it is ultimately the quest for truth that leads to a more authentic and fulfilling life.
In practice
A speaker addressing students at a graduation ceremony could use this quote to inspire them to seek deeper truths as they venture into adulthood.
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?
I once heard a theologian remark that in the Gospels people approached Jesus with a question 183 times whereas he replied with a direct answer only three times. Instead, he responded with a different question, a story, or some other indirection. Evidently Jesus wants us to work out answers on our own, using the principles that he taught and lived.
A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.
Refrain from asking what going to happen tomorrow, and everyday that fortune grants you, count as gain.
A man who cannot get angry is like a stream that cannot overflow, that is always turbid. Sometimes indignation is as good as a thunderstorm in summer, clearing and cooling the air.
It's not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It's because we dare not venture that they are difficult.
We are ever free if we would only believe it, only have faith enough.
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