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?
It has often occurred to me that a seeker after truth has to be silent.
Man always is perfect, or he never could become so; but he had to realise it.
No one is born a good citizen; no nation is born a democracy. Rather, both are processes that continue to evolve over a lifetime. Young people must be included from birth. A society that cuts off from its youth severs its lifeline.
I like being boring to a certain extent. I don't have to be flashy. I get to put all of that into a show, and when it's over, I don't have to be that.
Without a doubt there are women who would vote intelligently. There are also men who knit socks beautifully.
The Company of Wolves is about how society teaches young women to look at themselves, and what to be afraid of. It's about a girl learning that the world of sensuality and the unknown is not to be feared, that it's worth getting your teeth into.
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