He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.
Interpretation
True richness comes from making the most of each day without being burdened by worry.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes that true wealth is not measured by material possessions but by the ability to fully seize and enjoy each day. It suggests that allowing oneself to be consumed by worry and anxiety robs an individual of their time and peace, ultimately hindering their richness in life experiences.
In practice
During a motivational speech on managing stress, you could use this quote to illustrate the importance of mindfulness.
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 would stop, really stop, damning yourself, others, and unkind conditions, you would find it almost impossible to upset yourself emotionally - about anything. Yes, anything.
The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.
I'm practicing the discipline of not having to have the last word.
The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.
Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.
There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world even though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind.
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