Good breeding, a union of kindness and independence.
Interpretation
Good breeding combines kindness and the ability to be independent.
Ralph Waldo Emerson highlights the importance of good breeding as a virtue that encompasses both kindness towards others and the independence of thought and action. This union suggests that true refinement comes not just from social etiquette, but from a deeper moral character and self-reliance, promoting respectful and compassionate interactions while also valuing autonomy.
In practice
In a speech about personal development, one might say: 'As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, 'Good breeding, a union of kindness and independence,' which reminds us to cultivate both our compassion and our self-reliance.'
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?
And when I read, and really I do not read so much, only a few authors, - a few men that I discovered by accident - I do this because they look at things in a broader, milder and more affectionate way than I do, and because they know life better, so that I can learn from them.
Severities should be dealt out all at once, so that their suddenness may give less offense; benefits ought to be handed ought drop by drop, so that they may be relished the more.
Truth is a torch but a tremendous one. That is why we hurry past it, shielding our eyes, indeed, in fear of getting burned.
I am what I am. I love me! And I don't mean that egotistically - I love that God has allowed me to take whatever it was that I had and to make something out of it.
Never argue with people who buy ink by the gallon.
I didn't want to repeat my mistakes so I stopped, took some time out and started having therapy. My songs were bringing up feelings inside of me I didn't really understand, so I wanted to understand where they were coming from to help me be a better person and a better songwriter.
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