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?
Give a drink of water as alms to the birds which go forth at morning, and deem that they have a better right than men [to thy charity]. For their race brings not harm upon thee in any wise, when thou fearest it from thine own race.
Other people teach us who we are. Their attitudes to us are the mirror in which we learn to see ourselves, but the mirror is distorted. We are, perhaps, rather dimly aware of the immense power of our social enviornment.
The chief misery of the decline of the faculties, and a main cause of the irritability that often goes with it, is evidently the isolation, the lack of customary appreciation and influence, which only the rarest tact and thoughtfulness on the part of others can alleviate.
He always pictured himself a libertarian, which to my way of thinking means "I want the liberty to grow rich and you can have the liberty to starve". It's easy to believe that no one should depend on society for help when you yourself happen not to need such help.
To retire is the beginning of death.
One, with God, is always a majority, but many a martyr has been burned at the stake while the votes were being counted.
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