Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
Interpretation
Common sense and straightforwardness often surprise people more than complex ideas.
This quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes the value of common sense and honesty in our interactions. It suggests that while people may often seek out grand ideas or complexities, it is the simplicity and clarity of common sense that truly astonishes and impacts others, highlighting a preference for straightforward communication in a world full of convoluted thoughts.
In practice
In a speech advocating for transparency in business practices.
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?
From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light. Like those extraordinary stars of whose origins we are ignorant, and of whose fate, once they have vanished, we know even less, such men have neither forebears nor descendants: they are the whole of their race.
We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
Ultimate freedom is a man's right to choose his attitude.
I write from my knowledge not my lack, from my strength not my weakness. I am not interested if anyone knows whether or not I am familiar with big words, I am interested in trying to render big ideas in a simple way. I am interested in being understood not admired.
As a reader and a writer, I'm happiest when apparently mutually exclusive states can somehow coexist.
Humility is a flower which does not grow in everyone's garden.
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