A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.
Interpretation
The people we choose to associate with reflect our personal development.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that the friends we surround ourselves with play a significant role in our growth as individuals. It implies that as we evolve in life, our friendships change, reflecting our values, aspirations, and the kind of person we are becoming. The idea is that those we choose to befriend can influence our journey, offering both support and challenges that encourage us to grow.
In practice
During a speech at a graduation ceremony, one could quote this to emphasize the importance of choosing supportive friends.
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?
And then there are my friends, and they have their own lives. While they like to talk everything through, to analyze and hypothesize, what I really need, what I'm really looking for, is not something I can articulate. It's nonverbal: I need love. I need the thing that happens when your brain shuts off and your heart turns on. And I know it's around me somewhere, but I just can't feel it.
When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun.'
I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world.
Surround yourself with those who wonβt compete but will revel in your success and see your ascent as a reflection of their own possibilities.
You've got to reach a hand of friendship across the aisle and across philosophies in this country.
A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.
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