The civility of no race can be perfect whilst another race is degraded. It is a doctrine alike of the oldest and of the newest philosophy, that man is one, and that you cannot injure any member, without a sympathetic injury to all the members
Interpretation
True civility and equality cannot exist if any group is treated unfairly or degraded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes the interconnectedness of humanity in this quote, suggesting that the dignity and civility of any race are diminished when another race is mistreated. He advocates for the idea that all individuals are part of a single human community, where the harm done to one affects the entire collective, reflecting a fundamental principle that highlights the importance of empathy and solidarity among different races and groups.
In practice
In a discussion about racial equality, this quote can emphasize the importance of solidarity among all races.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful. And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy, you may find in them a harness and a chain. Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your body and less of your raiment.
Day by day, we are becoming what we shall be eternally. The spirit who convicts us is also the spirit who consoles.
No amount of political freedom will satisfy the hungry masses.
The story of terrorism is written by the state and it is therefore highly instructive… compared with terrorism, everything else must be acceptable, or in any case more rational and democratic.
We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.
It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination.
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