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?
It is really not so repulsive to see the poor asking for money as to see the rich asking for more money. And advertisement is the rich asking for more money.
Nothing is miserable unless you think it so.
Whatever the misery, he could not regain contentment with a world which, once doubted, became absurd.
Modern definitions of truth, such as those as pragmatism and instrumentalism, which are practical rather than contemplative, are inspired by industrialisation as opposed to aristocracy.
Remember, if you have not known sadness together with happiness you have not known anything yet. Then your happiness is superficial; your sadness is also superficial. Then you have been living on the surface; then you have known only the waves; you have not known the depth of the ocean that you are.
I think that knowledge enslaves us, that at the base of all knowledge there is a servility, the acceptation of a way of life wherein each moment has meaning only in relation to another or others that will follow it.
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