We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.
Interpretation
Resisting temptation builds our strength and character.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that the challenges we face and the temptations we choose to resist contribute to our personal growth and resilience. Each time we resist an urge, we reinforce our ability to make choices aligned with our values and goals, thereby becoming stronger individuals.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal development.
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?
To avoid discovery I stay on the run. To discover things for myself, I stay on the run.
Haven't you learned yet that I put something more than whisky into my speeches.
Don't expect smart people to listen to you without proof.
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
Those who make no mistakes are making the biggest mistakes of all - they are attempting nothing new.
Fear of commitment lies behind the fear of writing.
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