Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Politics

• Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous or when they are most luxurious-they are conservatives after dinner.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Luxury, Politics

  Essays, Second Series "New England Reformers" (1844)

• On the other side, the conservative party, composed of the most moderate, able, and cultivated part of the population, is timid, and merely defensive of property. It vindicates no right, it aspires to no real good, it brands no crime, it proposes no generous policy, it does not build, nor write, nor cherish the arts, nor foster religion, nor establish schools, nor encourage science, nor emancipate the slave, nor befriend the poor, or the Indian, or the immigrant.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Real, Writing

  Essays, Second Series "Politics" (1844)

• There is a certain satisfaction in coming down to the lowest ground of politics, for we get rid of cant and hypocrisy.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hypocrisy, Politics, Satisfaction

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume II”, p.123

• The desire of gold is not for gold. It is not the love of much wheat, and wool and household stuff. It is the means of freedom and benefit.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Freedom, Mean, Feel Good

  "The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude".

• Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Law, Good Man

  "Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson".

• Man exists for his own sake and not to add a laborer to the State.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Sake, Add

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1843-1871”, p.21, University of Georgia Press

• A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Party, Men, Thinking

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Heart of Emerson's Journals”, p.49, Courier Corporation

• You will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Thinking, Solitude, Self Reliance

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.12, Penguin

• A good deal of our politics is physiological.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Politics, Deals, Physiological

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1982). “Emerson: Selected Essays”, p.347, Penguin

• The two parties which divide the state, the party of Conservation and that of Innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Party, Two, Political

  "The Cycles of American History". Book by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., p. 23, 1986.

• There are men who, by their sympathetic attractions, carry nations with them, and lead the activity of the human race.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Race, Politics

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.429, Harvard University Press

• The spirit of our American radicalism is destructive and aimless; it is not loving; it has no ulterior and divine ends; but is destructive only out of hatred and selfishness.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hatred, Selfishness, Radicalism

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays: First and Second Series”, p.376, Library of America

• Conservatism stands on man's confessed limitations; reform on his indisputable infinitude; conservatism on circumstance; liberalism on power; one goes to make an adroit member of the social frame; the other to postpone all things to the man himself.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Reform, Politics

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1191, Delphi Classics

• All conservatives are such from personal defects. They have been effiminated by position of nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the defensive.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Luxury, Parent

• Washington, where an insignificant individual may trespass on a nation's time.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Time, Political, Individuality

• Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well. What satire on government can equal the severity of censure conveyed in the word politics ....?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Law, Political

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.525, Рипол Классик

• A bullet had found him, his blood ran out as he cried. No money could save him, so he laid down and died. Ooh, what a lucky man he was.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Blood, Politics

• The people know that they need in their representative much more than talent, namely, the power to make his talent trusted.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Power, People, Needs

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.328, Modern Library

• Society is an illusion to the young citizen. It lies before him in rigid repose, with certain names, men, and institutions, rootedlike oak-trees to the centre, round which all arrange themselves the best they can. But the old statesman knows that society is fluid; there are no such roots and centres; but any particle may suddenly become the centre of the movement, and compel the system to gyrate round it, as every man of strong will, like Pisistratus, or Cromwell, does for a time, and every man of truth, like Plato, or Paul, does forever.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Strong, Plato, Lying

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.161, Graphic Arts Books

• The men who carry their points do not need to inquire of their constituents what they should say, but are themselves the country which they represent: nowhere are its emotions or opinions so instant and so true as in them; nowhere so pure from a selfish infusion.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Country, Selfish, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.207

• Meantime the education of the general mind never stops. The reveries of the true and simple are prophetic. What the tender poeticyouth dreams, and prays, and paints today, but shuns the ridicule of saying aloud, shall presently be the resolutions of public bodies, then shall be carried as grievance and bill of rights through conflict and war, and then shall be triumphant law and establishment for a hundred years, until it gives place, in turn, to new prayers and pictures.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Dream, Prayer, War

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.560, Library of America

• Fear is cruel and mean. The political reigns of terror have been reigns of madness and malignity,--a total perversion of opinion;society is upside down, and its best men are thought too bad to live.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Fear, Mean, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.130, Harvard University Press

• Surely nobody would be a charlatan, who could afford to be sincere.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Would Be, Politics, Sincere

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2016). “Selected Writings”, p.198, Simon and Schuster

• Fear, Craft and Avarice Cannot rear a State.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Crafts, Politics, States

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.557, Library of America

• We might as easily reprove the east wind, or the frost, as a political party, whose members, for the most part, could give no account of their position, but stand for the defence of those interests in which they find themselves.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Party, Wind, Giving

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1502, Delphi Classics

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