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Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Work

Self-Reliance and Other Essays

This compilation includes influential essays such as 'Self-Reliance' and 'Nature', which delve into the virtues of self-reliance, the importance of solitude, and the pursuit of a life of authenticity. more

Author

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson

American essayist, poet, and philosopher. Born on May 25, 1803, and died on April 27, 1882. Known for his transcendentalist philosophy, his works have had a profound impact on literature and the intellectual world. more

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“What is the ordinary criminal but one who has committed the fatal mistake of endeavouring after what is the people's instead of seeking for what is his? He has sought despicable alien goods, has done what believers do who seek after what is God's. What does the priest who admonishes the criminal do? He sets before him the great wrong of having desecrated by his act what was hallowed by the state, its prop erty (in which, of course, must be included even the life of those who belong to the state); instead of this, he might rather hold up to him the fact that he has besmirched himself in not despising the alien thing, but thinking it worth stealing; he could, if he were not a cleric Talk with the so-called criminal as with an egoist, and he will be ashamed, not that he transgressed against your laws and goods, but that he considered your laws worth evading, your goods worth desiring; he will be ashamed that he did not - despise you and yours together, that he was too little an egoist”

PhilosophyCrimeMoralityIndependenceIndividualismEgoism
Book:The Ego and Its Own
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“Negroidity represents antiquity, the time of dependence on things (on cocks' eating, birds' flight, on sneezing, on thunder and lightning, on the rustling of sacred trees, and so forth) ; Mongoloidity the time of dependence on thoughts, the Christian time. Reserved for the future are the words, 'I am owner of the world of things, and I am owner of the world of mind'.”

PhilosophyCivilizationIndependenceIndividualismMind And Body
Book:The Ego and Its Own
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