We ask for long life, but 'tis deep life, or noble moments that signify. Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the importance of experiencing meaningful moments rather than simply counting years.
Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that the true essence of life lies not in its duration but in the depth and quality of the experiences we have. He emphasizes that spiritual richness and significant moments define our existence more than the mere passage of time, advocating for a life that prioritizes meaningful experiences over a long, unremarkable life.
In practice
In a graduation speech to emphasize the importance of meaningful experiences over mere age.
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?
God and Nature first made us what we are, and then out of our own created genius we make ourselves what we want to be. Follow always that great law. Let the sky and God be our limit and Eternity our measurement.
You could grow up in Germany in the postwar years without ever meeting a Jewish person. There were small communities in Frankfurt or Berlin, but in a provincial town in south Germany, Jewish people didn't exist.
If in a country, most of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few, then this country can hardly witness harmony and stability.
All wars are civil wars because all men are brothers... Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born.
We adults, our policies, our ways of governance, are responsible for poverty, not the children.
All imperfections are forced upon the imperfect, so the 'perfect' can live content and oblivious.
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