“What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”
―Ralph Waldo Emerson
Which of your virtues has the world not yet discovered?
2 thoughts on “A Weed”
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“What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”
―Ralph Waldo Emerson
Which of your virtues has the world not yet discovered?
Comments are closed.
Sometimes virtues are recognized in one age, devalued in another age and forgotten over various ages. The humble dandelion is an example. At one time all parts of these plants were highly valued, the flowers, the leaves and the roots. Now in our modern world, they are seen mostly as a nuisance — as the splotch of “ugly” yellow in a beautiful sea of green lawn. It seems to me that today in our hurried, impatient world other virtues have been forgotten, overlooked and disdained: Patience, gentleness, quietness, reflectiveness, and kindness are those that I see most neglected. It seems to be time for us to dust off these virtues, bring them out and visibly use them and share them with our friends.
Patience, gentleness and kindness and also quietness (if that is equivalent to temperance) were seen by the Apostle Paul as gifts of the Spirit. This is not kind of thing as a virtue. These gifts are certainly desirable though.