Women see better than men. Men see lazily, if they do not expect to act. Women see quite without any wish to act.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that women have a more attentive and perceptive way of seeing the world compared to men, who may only engage when action is required.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote reflects on the different ways men and women perceive their surroundings. He suggests that women possess a natural clarity of vision that allows them to observe without the need for immediate action, while men may be more passive or less engaged in their observations unless they have a specific purpose in mind. This highlights a contrast in attentiveness and perception between the genders, implying a depth to women's observational faculties that may often go unrecognized.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about gender differences in communication styles.
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?
As for oblivion, well, we can wait a little while for that.
He who cannot command himself should obey. And many can command themselves, but much is still lacking before they can obey themselves.
Heaven is always and forever around us and no soul remembered is ever really gone.
Random chance was not a sufficient explanation of the Universe---in fact, random chance was not sufficient to explain random chance; the pot could not hold itself.
In the calculus of western interests, there is no suffering, whatever its scale, which cannot be justified. Chechens, Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis are of little importance.
[A]nother important difference between tourist and traveler is that the former accepts his own civilization without question; not so the traveler, who compares it with the others, and rejects those elements he finds not to his liking.
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