burnunit: (Default)
burnunit ([personal profile] burnunit) wrote2006-11-22 02:09 pm
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emerson inspires me

RW Emerson was a tremendous thinker. He hated quotes, but here's some that moved me today:

"Conservatism makes no poetry, breathes no prayer, has no invention; it is all memory. Reform has no gratitude, no prudence, no husbandry."

"Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."


"Things are in the saddle and ride mankind." (this accords quite neatly with Luther, btw)

"When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it."

"What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not been discovered."

"There are always two parties; the establishment and the movement."

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do."

"Let us treat men and women well; treat them as if they were real. Perhaps they are."

appreciation

(Anonymous) 2006-12-03 10:41 pm (UTC)(link)
thank you - sarah