And what greater calamity can fall upon a nation than the loss of worship.
Interpretation
The loss of worship symbolizes a deeper decline in a nation's moral and spiritual values.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote emphasizes the significance of worship and spirituality within a nation. He suggests that losing the capacity or the inclination to worship can lead to profound moral and ethical decay, ultimately endangering the very fabric of society. This loss, he contends, can be more disastrous than any physical calamity, as it signifies a disconnect from fundamental values and principles that unify and uplift people.
In practice
In a speech about community values, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of shared beliefs.
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?
Being alone has a power over me that never fails. My interior dissolves (for the time being only superficially) and is ready to release what lies deeper. When I am willfully alone, a slight ordering of my interior begins to take place and I need nothing more.
The metaphor for Palestine is stronger than the Palestine of reality.
If I got rid of my demons, Iβd lose my angels.
I believe that the pursuit of truth and right ideas through honest debate and rigorous argument is a noble undertaking.
Every state of society is as luxurious as it can be. Men always take the best they can get.
All people are special, and all moments are golden. There is no person and there is no time more special than another. Many people choose to believe that God communicates in special ways and only with special people. This removes the mass of the people from responsibility for hearing God's message, much less receiving it (which is another matter), and allows them to take someone else's word for everything.
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