I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes. They have in themselves what they value in their horses, mettle and bottom.
Interpretation
Emerson highlights the steadfastness and resilience of the Englishman, drawing a parallel between people and horses.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes the strength of character that he perceives in Englishmen, suggesting that they possess an inherent quality of determination and endurance, akin to the attributes they appreciate in horses. By comparing men to horses, Emerson points out that both have qualities, such as 'mettle' (courage) and 'bottom' (stamina), which are valuable and essential for facing challenges in life.
In practice
During a motivational speech on overcoming challenges, one might quote Emerson to emphasize the importance of resilience.
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 you select from, in order to tell your story, is nothing less than everything. What you build up your world from, your local, intelligible rational, coherent world, is nothing less than everything. . . . . All human knowledge is local. Every life, each human life is local, is arbitrary, the infinitesimal momentary glitter of a reflection.
Eventually I lost interest in trying to control my life, to make things happen in a way that I thought I wanted them to be. I began to practice surrendering to the universe and finding out what "it" wanted me to do.
Reality denied comes back to haunt.
The United States has been called the melting pot of the world. But it seems to me that the colored man either missed getting into the pot or he got melted down.
The logic of the world is prior to all truth and falsehood.
For the record, feminism by definition is: 'The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.'
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