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?
Too much has been forgotten in the name of memory.
His eyes are wild, psychotic slits that bat-dance in your soul looking for good things to crush or bad elements to identify with.
The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts.
Our country is slowly but surely moving - and I've seen it over and over again in many instances in government - toward a culture of mediocrity.
A man may stand for the justice of God, but a woman stands for His Mercy.
Holiness of life is not the privilege of a chosen few - it is the obligation, the call, and the will of God for every Christian.
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