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Poverty, Frost, Famine, Rain, Disease, are the beadles and guardsmen that hold us to Common Sense.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Life's hardships keep us grounded in reality.

In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that challenges such as poverty, famine, and disease serve as reminders of our reality. These difficulties effectively act as guides, urging us to maintain practical and common-sense approaches to life, as they can expose our vulnerabilities and priorities.

Themes

PovertyCommon SenseAdversityRealityHardships

In practice

Example use cases

In a motivational speech about resilience during tough times.

More from Ralph Waldo Emerson

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.
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Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
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Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
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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.
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The world belongs to the energetic.
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Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
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Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson | QuoteProject