Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.
Interpretation
Committing a crime exposes one's vulnerabilities and consequences are visible for all to see.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that when a person engages in criminal behavior, they are metaphorically placed in a situation where their wrongdoings are transparent, akin to being on display. The idea of the earth being made of glass implies that their actions will not go unnoticed, and the repercussions of their crimes will be evident both to themselves and society, reinforcing the interconnectedness of individual actions and public perception.
In practice
In a discussion about the impact of crime on society, one might say, 'As Emerson wisely noted, commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.'
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?
What citizens of a free country would listen to any offers of good and skillful administration in return for the abdication of freedom?
When I became convinced that the universe is natural, that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell. The dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust.
There is no point in being overwhelmed by the appalling total of human sufferring; such a total does not exist. Neither poverty nor pain is accumulable.
Things themselves cannot touch the soul, not in the least degree, nor have they admission to the soul nor can they turn or move the soul: it turns and moves itself alone and whatever judgment it may think proper to make, such it makes by remaking for itself the things that present themselves to it
In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality. It is as final as the mountains: a fact. There it is. When you realize it you cannot complain.
When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.
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