To have played and laughed with enthusiasm, and sung with exultation - this to to have succeeded.
Interpretation
Success is defined by the joy and enthusiasm experienced in activities, rather than by traditional accomplishments.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that true success lies in the joy and enthusiasm one experiences while engaging in life's activities. Rather than measuring success by conventional standards such as wealth or status, Emerson emphasizes the importance of finding joy in playing, laughing, and singing, highlighting that these moments of passion and happiness are what truly define a successful life.
In practice
During a graduation speech, this quote could inspire students to pursue their passions over conventional measures of success.
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?
The seventh factor of the basic ingredients of genius, as determined from an extensive analysis of the lives of outstanding men of this nation, is *the habit of going the extra mile.* You will never be a genius unless you make it a habit to do more and better than you are paid to do, every single day of your life.
The most talented do not always end up as celebrities, and those with less talent often do. Upsets are written into our history and occur around us every day.
When you have a challenge and the response is equal to the challenge, that's called 'success'. But once you have a new challenge, the old, once-successful response no longer works. That's why it is called a 'failure'.
To succeed in business, to reach the top, an individual must know all it is possible to know about that business.
If you're going to play at all, you're out to win. Baseball, board games, playing Jeopardy, I hate to lose.
I would rather live a short life of glory than a long one of obscurity.
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