Sleep lingers all our lifetime about our eyes, as night hovers all day in the boughs of the fir-tree.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that sleep has a persistent influence on our lives, much like the continuous presence of night around a fir tree.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote emphasizes the idea that sleep is a fundamental and ever-present aspect of human experience. Just as night envelops the fir tree throughout the day, sleep lingers in our lives, suggesting that it is a natural state that shapes our existence and consciousness. This metaphorical connection enhances the understanding of how deeply intertwined sleep is with our daily lives and overall well-being.
In practice
During a speech about the importance of rest and recovery, one could use this quote to highlight the significance of sleep in our lives.
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?
Lent is the time for trimming the soul and scrapping the sludge off a life turned slipshod. Lent is about taking stock of time, even religious time. Lent is about exercising the control that enables us to say no to ourselves so that when life turns hard of its own accord we have the stamina to yes to its twists and turns with faith and hope. Lent is the time to make new efforts to be what we say we want to be.
What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes.
If it came to a magic genie, I would ask him for two extra wishes. One would be that no one would have to live with the muscular dystrophy disease or any disease. And the second one would be world peace, that we just stop fighting, talk about things, and we could live in harmony once again, like God intended us to do.
I court not the votes of the fickle mob.
Our brain accepts what the eyes see and our eye looks for whatever our brain wants.
The cyborg would not recognize the garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.