I wiped away the weeds and foam, I fetched my sea-born treasures home; But the poor, unsightly, noisome things Had left their beauty on the shore, With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the idea that the true beauty of experiences is often left behind, while we pursue tangible treasures.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote captures the tension between the pursuit of material possessions and the appreciation for the natural beauty that surrounds us. It suggests that while we may seek to collect and bring home physical treasures from our experiences, the essence and beauty of those experiences often remain rooted in the environment and moments we encounter. The weeds and foam symbolize the distractions and imperfections in life that may overshadow the true beauty found in nature.
In practice
In a speech about environmental awareness, to emphasize the value of nature over material gain.
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?
We turn skeletons into goddesses and look to them as if they might teach us how not to need.
Democracies are indeed slow to make war, but once embarked upon a martial venture are equally slow to make peace and reluctant to make a tolerable, rather than a vindictive, peace.
They do not want to know that centralization is not only the death-knell of liberty, but also of health and beauty, of art and science, all these being impossible in a clock-like, mechanical atmosphere.
Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue; or in any manner affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change and can trace its consequences; a harvest reared not by themselves but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the few not for the many.
To take wine into your mouth is to savor a droplet of the river of human history.
The legend of the best player of chess has been destroyed.
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