The evils of popular government appear greater than they are; there is compensation for them in spirit and energy it awakens.
Ralph Waldo EmersonThe youth, intoxicated with his admiration of a hero, fails to see, that it is only a projection of his own soul, which he admires.
Ralph Waldo EmersonUnder the dominion of an idea, which possesses the minds of multitudes, as civil freedom, or the religious sentiment, the power ofpersons are no longer subjects of calculation. A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom, or conquest, can easily confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions, out of all proportion to their means; as, the Greeks, the Saracens, the Swiss, the Americans, and the French have done.
Ralph Waldo Emerson