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Sickness is poor-spirited, and cannot serve anyone; it must husband its resources to live. But health or fullness answers its own ends, and has to spare, runs over, and inundates the neighborhoods and creeks of other men's necessities.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Health benefits not only ourselves but also those around us.

Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote reflects on the idea that sickness is a burden that limits one's ability to help others, as it consumes one's energy and resources. In contrast, good health allows an individual to contribute positively to the community, enabling them to extend their capabilities and generosity beyond their own needs, thereby enriching the lives of others.

Themes

HealthSicknessWellnessCommunityGenerosity

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about community health initiatives, this quote could emphasize the importance of supporting healthy lifestyles.

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.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
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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