The world always had the same bankrupt look, to foregoing ages as to us.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that the world's problems have been consistent across time, appearing bleak to each generation.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote reflects on the timelessness of the world's struggles and challenges. He indicates that each generation perceives the world as having a 'bankrupt look', suggesting a loss of potential or value, and implies that these feelings have persisted throughout history, connecting us with those who came before us as they faced their own trials and disillusionments.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the cyclical nature of human problems at a philosophy class.
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?
The fourth (of the four cardinal virtues) is supportiveness: this manifests as service to others without expectation of reward. (Paraphrased: Such service is not a mere conforming to some external rule of behavior, but instead a manifestation of your original nature).
Perfect wisdom has four parts: Wisdom, the principle of doing things aright. Justice, the principle of doing things equally in public and private. Fortitude, the principle of not fleeing danger, but meeting it. Temperance, the principle of subduing desires and living moderately.
Herein would I live; herein would I die; hereon would I dwell in my thoughts and affections; to the withering and consumption of all the painted beauties of this world, unto the crucifying all things here below, until they become unto me a dead and deformed thing, no way meet for affectionate embraces.
I enjoyed having a reputation as being wild, but these days I try not to worry about what people think in the privacy of their own brain or what they write in the bizarre publicity of their own newspapers, because all of those things are meaningless.
The only way into truth is through one's own annihilation; through dwelling a long time in a state of extreme and total humiliation.
I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice.
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