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In failing circumstances no one can be relied on to keep their integrity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Interpretation

What this quote means

In difficult situations, people often compromise their principles.

Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote highlights the fragility of integrity when faced with challenging circumstances. It suggests that during tough times, individuals may succumb to pressure and abandon their moral values, indicating that true integrity is tested under adversity.

Themes

IntegrityAdversityCharacterMoralityPrinciples

In practice

Example use cases

In discussions about business ethics, this quote could be used to highlight the importance of maintaining integrity under pressure.

More from Ralph Waldo Emerson

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.
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Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
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Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
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The world belongs to the energetic.
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Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
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