Success Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson lands the punch with a word that sounds almost too pretty to be true: "choirs". Not circles, not crowds, but harmonizing voices. The line flatters friendship into something moral and almost liturgical, then quietly makes it a metric. You do not measure a life by titles or possessions; you measure it by the company that can stand to sing alongside you over time.

The intent is distinctly Emersonian: self-culture made social. For a thinker who preached self-reliance, he also understood that the self is edited in public. The "successive" part matters most. It implies that the friends who fit you at 20 may not fit at 30, and that outgrowing people is not betrayal but evidence of becoming. The subtext is both liberating and ruthless: if your life keeps the same cast forever, maybe the plot has stalled. Friendship here is not nostalgia; it's feedback.

Context sharpens the edge. Emerson wrote in a 19th-century America obsessed with character formation, lecturing circuits, clubs, churches, and reform movements - institutions where "who you kept company with" functioned as reputation, education, and moral proof. Calling these friend-groups "choirs" nods to the era's religious cadence while also secularizing it: the congregation that shapes you is chosen, not inherited.

There's also a quiet warning against status collecting. A "choir" is not a trophy case; it requires listening, blending, and discipline. Growth isn't just moving on to "better" friends. It's learning to hear new harmonies - and to become someone worth harmonizing with.