The world is his who can see through its pretension. What deafness, what stone-blind custom, what overgrown error you behold, is there only by sufferance,--by your sufferance. See it to be a lie, and you have already dealt it its mortal blow.
Interpretation
Understanding the world's illusions allows one to transcend them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote emphasizes the importance of perception in discerning the truth behind societal norms and pretensions. By recognizing the falsehoods perpetuated by tradition and custom, one gains power over them, effectively dismantling their influence and asserting personal freedom.
In practice
During a motivational speech about critical thinking and self-awareness.
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?
When you have a spirit of excellence, you do the right thing not because somebody is watching or making you do it; you do it because it's the right thing to do.
Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence.
A tree with strong roots can withstand the most violent storm, but the tree can't grow roots just as the storm appears on the horizon.
If you've been playing poker for half an hour and you still don't know who the patsy is, you're the patsy.
This, I thought, is how great visionaries and poets see everything- as if for the first time. Each morning they see a new world before their eyes; they do not really see it, they create it.
It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?
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