What you do thunders above your head so loudly, I cannot hear the words you speak.
Interpretation
Actions carry more weight than words; what you do speaks louder than what you say.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes the importance of actions over words. It suggests that one's behavior and deeds are powerful indicators of true intent and character, often overshadowing verbal communication. In this sense, it serves as a reminder to be mindful of how our actions reflect our beliefs and values.
In practice
In a discussion about leadership, one could use this quote to highlight the importance of demonstrating values through actions.
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?
I was raised that way: don't get mad, get smart.
When you get into your car, shut the door and be there for just half a minute. Breathe, feel the energy inside your body, look around at the sky, the trees. The mind might tell you, 'I don't have time.' But that's the mind talking to you. Even the busiest person has time for 30 seconds of space.
To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.
What the great ones do, the less will prattle of
When your toil has been a pleasure, you have not earned money merely, but money, health, delight, and moral profit, all in one.
In solitude we become aware that our worth is not the same as our usefulness.
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