Every man alone is sincere._x000D_ At the entrance of a second person,_x000D_ hypocrisy begins._x000D_ We parry and fend the approach_x000D_ of our fellow-man by compliments,_x000D_ by gossip, by amusements, by affairs._x000D_ We cover up our thought from him_x000D_ under a hundred folds.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that individuals can be honest in solitude but become insincere when interacting with others due to social pressures.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote explores the concept of sincerity and hypocrisy in human interactions. It highlights how, in isolation, a person can be true to their thoughts and feelings; however, once they engage with others, they often disguise their true selves with compliments, gossip, and distractions. This behavioral shift indicates the complexities of social interactions where maintaining a façade becomes a common defense mechanism against vulnerability.
In practice
In a discussion on human behavior at a psychology seminar.
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?
Money degrades all the gods of man and converts them into commodities.
It is said there are flowers that bloom only once in a hundred years. Why should there not be some that bloom once in a thousand, in ten thousand years? Perhaps we never know about them simply because this "once in a thousand years" has come today.
I was born in South Africa during apartheid, a system of laws that made it illegal for people to mix in South Africa. And this was obviously awkward because I grew up in a mixed family. My mother's a black woman, South African Xhosa woman... and my father's Swiss, from Switzerland.
One can only face in others what one can face in oneself.
I believe we create our own lives. And we create it by our thinking, feeling patterns in our belief system. I think we're all born with this huge canvas in front of us and the paintbrushes and the paint, and we choose what to put on this canvas.
I think that if there are positions that you can't argue... then the responsibility is probably to resign. If one's own conscience is opposed to the requirements and responsibilities of the job, then it's time to leave the job.
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