Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous or when they are most luxurious-they are conservatives after dinner.
Interpretation
People tend to become conservative when they are comfortable or complacent.
Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that during times of relaxation and abundance, individuals may lean towards conservative views and reluctance to change, indicating a psychological state influenced by comfort. This reflects a broader understanding of human behavior, where the lack of challenge or necessity can lead to stagnant thinking and an adherence to the status quo.
In practice
During a lecture on political philosophy, you can use this quote to illustrate how personal comfort influences political attitudes.
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?
How loved, how honored once, avails thee not, To whom related, or by whom begot A heap of dust alone remains of thee 'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!
Before I got here, I thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that it did not exist, to build a small, self-sufficient world in the back corner of the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home.
Personally, when it comes to rights, I think one of two things is true. I think either we have unlimited rights, or we have no rights at all. Personally I lean towards unlimited rights, I feel for instance I have the right to do anything I please, BUT! If I do something you don't like I think you have the right to kill me.
It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.
When I fish, I stop thinking about anything else. But truth be told, if you want to declare victories, I can tell you the fish have won a lot more than I have. It's interesting that something with a brain the size of a fish's can outsmart us humans, who think we are el supremo.
We are the cosmos made conscious and life is the means by which the universe understands itself.
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