The soul is the perceiver and revealer of truth. We know truth when we see it, let skeptic and scoffer say what they choose. Foolish people ask you, when you have spoken what they do not wish to hear, 'How do you know it is truth, and not an error of your own?' We know truth when we see it, from opinion, as we know when we are awake that we are awake.
Interpretation
The essence of truth is recognized by the soul, independent of skepticism or doubt.
Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes the intrinsic ability of the soul to perceive and reveal truth, suggesting that knowledge of truth is inherently understood, much like the clarity of being awake. He highlights the challenges posed by skepticism, noting that while some may question the validity of one's truth, the true understanding of truth is a personal and internal experience that transcends mere opinion.
In practice
This quote can be used during a philosophical discussion about the nature of truth and perception.
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?
You are the luminous mystery in which the entire universe with its forms and phenomena arises and subsides. When this realization dawns there is a complete transformation of your personal self into your universal self . . . the complete loss of all fear, including death. You have become a being who radiates love the same way the sun radiates light. You have finally arrived at the place from which your journey began.
My language and my sensibility are yearning to admit a kind of religious or transcendent dimension. But then there's the reality: there's no Heaven, no afterlife of the sort we were promised, and no personal God.
Liberty is not just an idea, an abstract principle. It is power, effective power to do specific things. There is no such thing as liberty in general; liberty, so to speak, at large.
Space. The continual becoming: invisible fountain from which all rhythms flow and to which they must pass. Beyond time or infinity
Nobody likes to be found out, not even one who has made ruthless confession a part of his profession. Any autobiographer, therefore, at least between the lines, spars with his reader and potential judge.
If we don't have access to facts, we can't trust each other. Without trust, there's no law. Without law, there's no democracy.
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