Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.
Interpretation
The quote highlights how various disciplines express and embody wisdom through different forms of art and action.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote illustrates the multifaceted nature of wisdom as it is represented across different fields and professions. He suggests that wisdom transcends mere knowledge; it is an integral part of creation, whether through artistic expression, leadership, exploration, or innovation. Thus, it emphasizes that wisdom can be seen in a wide array of human endeavors, each contributing uniquely to our understanding and appreciation of life.
In practice
In a speech about creativity, one might quote Emerson to emphasize the importance of wisdom in artistic endeavors.
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?
I do not dwell on dreams I know how soon a dream becomes an expectation How can I have expectations? Look at me, No, Captain, Look at me, Look at me!
Small people delight in what they call consistency-that is, it gives them immense pleasure to say that they believe now exactly as they did ten years ago. This simply amounts to a certificate that they have not grown-that they have not developed-and that they know just as little now as they ever did. The highest possible conception of consistency is to be true to the knowledge of today, without the slightest reference to what your opinion was years ago.
Unify your attention. Do not listen with your ears, but with your mind. Do not listen with your mind but with your essence.
Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.
When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch's statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty to learn Greek. I am amazed no longer. Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
Nothing makes one old so quickly as the ever-present thought that one is growing older.
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