Life will show you masks that are worth all your carnivals
Interpretation
Life brings many experiences and events that reveal true value beyond superficiality.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that throughout life, people will encounter various situations and 'masks' that serve as metaphors for the roles and facades individuals wear. These experiences can provide profound insights and meaning that are far more valuable than the fleeting joys of superficial celebrations, like carnivals. Ultimately, it highlights the importance of looking beyond appearances to find genuine truths in life.
In practice
In a speech about personal growth, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of recognizing deeper truths in our experiences.
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?
One has to reach to the absolute state of awareness: that is Zen. You cannot do it every morning for a few minutes or for half an hour and then forget all about it. It has to become like your heartbeat. You have to sit in it, you have to walk in it. Yes, you have even to sleep in it.
It's difficult to believe in yourself because the idea of self is an artificial construction. You are, in fact, part of the glorious oneness of the universe. Everything beautiful in the world is within you.
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there.
When you are studying any matter or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only: what are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted by what you wish to believe, but look only and surely at what are the facts.
The universal and lasting establishment of peace constitutes not merely a part, but the whole final purpose and end of the science of right as viewed within the limits of reason.
Without peace, there is little hope for human rights
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