So . . . I feel in regard to this aged England . . . pressed upon by transitions of trade and . . . competing populations,-I see her not dispirited, not weak, but well remembering that she has seen dark days before;-indeed, with a kind of instinct that she sees a little better in a cloudy day, and that, in storm of battle and calamity, she has a secret vigor and a pulse like a cannon.
Ralph Waldo EmersonWhen the eyes say one thing, and the tongue another, a practiced man relies on the language of the first.
Ralph Waldo EmersonNothing can be colder than his head, when the lightnings of his imagination are playing in the sky.
Ralph Waldo EmersonFreedom is the essence of this faith. It has for its object simply to make men good and wise. Its institutions then should be as flexible as the wants of men. That form out of which the life and suitableness have departed should be as worthless in its eyes as the dead leaves that are falling around us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson