Our people are slow to learn the wisdom of sending character instead of talent to Congress. Again and again they have sent a man of great acuteness, a fine scholar, a fine forensic orator, and some master of the brawls has crunched him up in his hands like a bit of paper.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of character over talent in leadership roles.
Ralph Waldo Emerson highlights a common observation in politics: while individuals may possess great talent and intelligence, it is ultimately their character that determines their effectiveness in leadership. He suggests that too often, society values intellectual prowess and oratory skills over moral integrity and the ability to lead with virtue, leading to the downfall of capable individuals at the hands of those with lesser skills but stronger character.
In practice
Use this quote in a speech about the qualities necessary for effective leadership in politics.
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?
When the wires are all down and your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and only then, have you grown old.
Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper. Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure.They’re huge and abstract. And they’re very beautiful.
Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story. That is his duty.
I just want to be a free writer. I think I am serving my country and my people by providing an independent narrative.
Never, never rest contented with any circle of ideas, but always be certain that a wider one is still possible.
Sometimes I'm more stubborn than I am smart.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.