We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would have every path laid open to woman as freely as to man.
Margaret FullerRead
The public must learn how to cherish the nobler and rarer plants, and to plant the aloe, able to wait a hundred years for it's bloom, or it's garden will contain, presently, nothing but potatoes and pot-herbs.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of nurturing valuable and unique ideas over commonplace ones.
Margaret Fuller highlights the need for society to appreciate and cultivate rare and noble qualities or ideas, symbolized by the aloe plant that takes time to bloom. Without this focus, we risk settling for only the mundane and ordinary, represented by potatoes and pot-herbs, which serve as a metaphor for the easy and unremarkable choices we often make.
Themes
CherishNobleRarePatienceNatureGrowth
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about environmental preservation, I might cite this quote to emphasize the importance of nurturing rare species.
More from Margaret Fuller
All quotes →I fear I have not one good word to say this fair morning, though the sun shines so encouragingly on the distant hills and gentle river and the trees are in their festive hues. I am not festive, though contented. When obliged to give myself to the prose of life, as I am on this occasion of being established in a new home I like to do the thing, wholly and quite, - to weave my web for the day solely from the grey yarn.
Margaret FullerRead
Plants of great vigor will almost always struggle into blossom, despite impediments. But there should be encouragement, and a free genial atmosphere for those of more timid sort, fair play for each in its own kind.
Margaret FullerRead
Two persons love in one another the future good which they aid one another to unfold.
Margaret FullerRead
It was not meant that the soul should cultivate the earth, but that the earth should educate and maintain the soul.
Margaret FullerRead
It seems that it is madder never to abandon one's self than often to be infatuated; better to be wounded, a captive and a slave, than always to walk in armor.
Margaret FullerRead
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