There are men too superior to be seen except by a few, as there are notes too high for the scale of most ears.
Interpretation
Only a select few can recognize the true greatness in others, just as only certain notes can be perceived by trained ears.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote suggests that true excellence and superiority often go unnoticed by the majority of people, similar to how only a few people can hear the highest musical notes. This highlights the idea that greatness can exist beyond the understanding or awareness of the general population, and it requires a discerning eye or ear to recognize such exceptional qualities in individuals.
In practice
During a speech on leadership, you might say, 'As Ralph Waldo Emerson noted, there are men too superior to be seen except by a few.'
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?
You're neither right nor wrong because other people agree with you. You're right because your facts are right and your reasoning is right - that's the only thing that makes you right. And if your facts and reasoning are right, you don't have to worry about anybody else.
I wonder if we might pledge ourselves to remember what life is really all aboutβnot to be afraid that we're less flashy than the next, not to worry that our influence is not that of a tornado, but rather that of a grain of sand in an oyster! Do we have that kind of patience?
There is a beauty and clarity that comes from simplicity that we sometimes do not appreciate in our thirst for intricate solutions.
My psychoanalysis has equipped you with the equivalent of a train ticket to recovery. It is now your decision whether or not you choose to make full use of it.
I trust that when people meet, we meet for a transcendent reason, and that the challenges we face in life are always lessons that serve our soul's growth.
He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles.
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