Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is like a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue. . . .
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the nature of life and perception, suggesting that our experiences are influenced by our moods and illusions.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote explores the idea that life is a series of experiences shaped by our feelings, much like a train of differing moods represented by colored beads. Each mood acts like a lens that colors our perspective of reality, implying that our understanding of life is subjective and contingent upon these moods and the illusions they create.
In practice
In a motivational speech about resilience and adaptation to life's challenges.
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?
Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.
If you and I are to live religious lives, it mustn't be that we talk a lot about religion, but that our manner of life is different. It is my belief that only if you try to be helpful to other people will you in the end find your way to God.
At this point in history when all things which concern man and the structure and elements of history itself are suddenly revealed to us in a new light, it behooves us in our scientific thinking to become masters of the situation, for it is not inconceivable that sooner than we suspect, as has often been the case before in history, this vision may disappear, the opportunity may be lost, and the world will once again present a static, uniform, and inflexible countenance.
In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent.
It is harder to preserve than to obtain liberty.
We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character.
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