Some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise.
Interpretation
Some people possess inner qualities that are so valuable that excessive praise can diminish their true nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote suggests that there are individuals whose intrinsic qualities are so exceptional that they do not require external validation through praise; in fact, such praise may even distort their true essence. The idea emphasizes the importance of humility and the notion that genuine qualities should stand independently without needing to be bolstered by others' commendations.
In practice
During a speech about personal growth, one might say this quote to emphasize the importance of humility.
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?
Pleasure is not the purpose of man's existence. Joy is.
There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.
Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.
To make oneself an object, to make oneself passive, is a very different thing from being a passive object.
The misery of man proceeds not from any single crush of overwhelming evil, but from small vexations continually repeated.
Night's candles have burned out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountaintops." Hope tinged with melancholy - like life.
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