Slavery it is that makes slavery; freedom, freedom. The slavery of women happened when the men were slaves of kings.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that oppression and freedom are interconnected, suggesting that one group's slavery can result from the subjugation of another.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote highlights the intricate relationship between freedom and slavery, particularly how one form of oppression can lead to another. He argues that the conditions of slavery are not only physical but also tied to social hierarchies, indicating that men's subjugation under tyrannical powers has historically contributed to the oppression of women. The quote prompts reflection on how various forms of oppression relate to and exacerbate each other.
In practice
In a speech about social justice, one might include this quote to emphasize the connection between different forms of oppression.
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?
Rebirth. I mean by this simply what happens when the child begins to realise the fact that the black does not enter through the whiteβs front door is not in the same category as the fact that the dead will never come back.
The Convention thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men.
When God is our Holy Father, sovereignty, holiness, omniscience, and immutability do not terrify us; they leave us full of awe and gratitude. Sovereignty is only tyrannical if it is unbounded by goodness; holiness is only terrifying if it is untempered by grace; omniscience is only taunting if it is unaccompanied by mercy; and immutability is only torturous if there is no guarantee of goodwill.
I don't think much new ever happens. Most of us spend our days the same way people spent their days in the year 1000: walking around smiling, trying to earn enough to eat, while neurotically doing these little self-proofs in our head about how much better we are than these other slobs, while simultaneously, in another part of our brain, secretly feeling woefully inadequate to these smarter, more beautiful people.
Every dictator is a mystic, and every mystic is a potential dictator. A mystic craves obedience from men, not their agreement. He wants them to surrender their consciousness to his assertions, his edicts, his wishes, his whims - as his consciousness is surrendered to theirs. He wants to deal with men by means of faith and force - he finds no satisfaction in their consent if he must earn it by means of facts and reason.
My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.
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