I am grown by sympathy a little eager and sentimental, but leave me alone, and I should relish every hour and what it brought me, the pot-luck of the day, as heartily as the oldest gossip in the bar-room.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the importance of appreciating life's moments, whether they bring joy or challenge.
In this quote, Emerson expresses a sentiment about the richness of experience and the human condition. He suggests that while he may be influenced by sympathy and sentimentality, he thrives when left to engage with life on his own terms, savoring each moment for what it brings. The metaphor of 'the pot-luck of the day' implies a diversity of experiences, and he emphasizes a sincere enjoyment of life, much like the casual camaraderie found in a social setting like a bar-room.
In practice
This quote could inspire a speech at a life celebration event.
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?
I healed. Not completely. A scar is never the same as good flesh, but it stops the bleeding.
If I had my life to live over again, I would ask that not a thing be changed, but that my eyes be opened wider.
I don't know anybody's road who's been paved perfectly for them, there are no manuals, you don't know what life has in store for you.
Boxing was not something I truly enjoyed. Like a lot of things in life, when you put the gloves on, it's better to give than to receive.
Going down (descending), I realized, was like taking hold of the loose strand of yard on a sweater you'd just spent hours knitting and pulling it until the entire sweater unraveled into a pile of string. Hiking the PCT was the maddening effort of knitting that sweater and unraveling it over and over again. As if everything gained was inevitably lost.
There's no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.
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