Let him be great, and love shall follow him. Nothing is more deeply punished than the neglect of the affinities by which alone society should be formed, and the insane levity of choosing associates by others eyes.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that greatness and love are interconnected, and that choosing friends and associates wisely is crucial for a healthy society.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that true greatness naturally attracts love, and neglecting important personal connections is severely punished. He criticizes the superficiality of forming relationships based on others' perceptions rather than genuine affinities, highlighting the importance of authenticity in our social connections for a flourishing society.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about building meaningful relationships in a community.
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?
History and socio-economic inequality and all those things had, like, borne down upon my family and my community and really sort of narrowed our choices.
The act of sending a letter is an act of generosity, even if, in retrospect, it might seem reckless. Why regret one's generosity? Why regret one's impulsiveness, one's misjudgment of others? The inevitable discovery that someone is selling letters you'd written in trust is simply to discover an obvious human truth: there are those who don't cherish us as we'd cherished them, and had wished to be cherished by them.
My kids speak of both subtle slights and blatant racism. It's a narrative I never imagined for them.
Even if a relationship is breakable, it doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile, beautiful, and all the things that we look for.
And if I had not a letter to write myself, I might sit by you and admire the evenness of your writing, as another young lady once did. But I have an aunt too, who must not be longer neglected.
They are more to me than life, these voices, they are more than motherliness and more than fear; they are the strongest, most comforting thing there is anywhere: they are the voices of my comrades.
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