Whoever is open, loyal, true; of humane and affable demeanour; honourable himself, and in his judgement of others; faithful to his word as to law, and faithful alike to God and man....such a man is a true gentleman.
Interpretation
A true gentleman embodies integrity, loyalty, and kindness in all aspects of life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson defines a true gentleman as someone who possesses a genuine and affable nature, acts honorably, and is faithful to both his commitments and moral principles. This quote emphasizes the importance of character and integrity in defining an individual’s worth beyond social status or outward appearances.
In practice
A speaker at a personal development seminar might use this quote to inspire attendees to cultivate their character.
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?
The only time you should look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to see if you have as much as them.
Good Lord! who can account for the fathomless folly of the public?
It is the habit of every aggressor nation to claim that it is acting on the defensive.
Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.
Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.
If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction.
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