Whence, then, this worship of the past? The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul.
Interpretation
This quote questions the reverence for past traditions and beliefs, suggesting they can undermine personal authority and clarity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson in this quote critiques the tendency to idolize the past, implying that such veneration can lead to a loss of personal sanity and undermine oneβs inner authority. He suggests that the weight of historical precedents can cloud judgment and obstruct genuine self-awareness, thus challenging individuals to seek their own truths rather than adhere blindly to what has been established.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the importance of personal beliefs versus societal expectations.
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 is in the union of the Ascending and the Descending currents that harmony is found, and not in any war between the two. It seems that only when the Ascending and the Descending are united can both be saved. And if we - if you and I - do not contribute to this union, then it is very possible that not only will we destroy the only Earth we have, we will forfeit the only heaven we might otherwise embrace.
One always has the idea of a stupid man as perfectly healthy and ordinary, and of illness as making one refined and clever and unusual.
FORCE, n. "Force is but might," the teacher said p/ "That definition's just."/ The boy said naught but throught instead,/ Remembering his pounded head:/ "Force is not might but must!"
The experience of the self is always a defeat for the ego.
You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.
By nature's kindly disposition most questions which it is beyond a man's power to answer do not occur to him at all.
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