Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?
Interpretation
A single powerful word can convey profound meaning, making lengthy explanations unnecessary.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson highlights the power of simplicity and the impact that a single, well-chosen word can have in expressing complex ideas. It suggests that often, the essence of a thought can be captured succinctly without the need for extensive elaboration, emphasizing the importance of clarity and precision in communication.
In practice
In a speech about effective communication, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of clarity.
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?
If you believe in God, work with Him. If you do not, become one.
I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side.
It now seems plain to me that that theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one...the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.
The Middle East is ailing. The malady stems from pervasive violence, shortages of food, water and educational opportunities, discrimination against women and - the most virulent cause of all - the absence of freedom.
The choice before human beings, is not, as a rule, between good and evil but between two evils.
Endless praise and adoration, limitless abnegation and abjection of self; a celestial North Korea.
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