The best chess-player in Christendom may be little more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist implies capacity for success in all those more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind.
Interpretation
Being skilled in complex games reflects one's capability in other important intellectual challenges.
Edgar Allan Poe suggests that while being a great chess player is admirable, true proficiency in the game of whist indicates a deeper intellectual capacity that can translate to success in various significant and challenging endeavors. This comparison underscores the value of skills that require not only strategy but also an understanding of human interaction and competition.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational speech to emphasize the importance of diverse skills.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch's high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed, Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.
Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes.
...the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair.
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.
I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.
I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.
Between here and heaven, every minute that the Christian lives will be a minute of grace.
Your intention rules your life and determines the outcome.
When it feels like we need to choose between being right and being humble- pick both
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle
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