There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we must obey.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that adhering strictly to external laws can undermine personal autonomy and spirit.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote reflects on the nature of obedience and the human tendency to seek external laws or guidelines to follow. By labeling this habit as 'servile', Emerson implies that it diminishes our individuality and capacity for self-governance, urging us to embrace our inner moral compass rather than rely solely on imposed rules.
In practice
In a discussion about personal responsibility during a philosophy class.
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?
I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity.
Every State has the primary duty to protect its own population from grave and sustained violations of human rights, as well as from the consequences of humanitarian crises, whether natural or man-made.
I think television has betrayed the meaning of democratic speech, adding visual chaos to the confusion of voices. What role does silence have in all this noise?
I think the meaning of abortion is what the woman says it is: For a woman who wants a child but can't have this one, it can be sad; for a woman who doesn't want a baby, it can feel like a huge relief, like having your whole life given back to you.
When you see in places like Africa and parts of Asia abject poverty, hungry children and malnutrition around you, and you look at yourself as being people who have well being and comforts, I think it takes a very insensitive, tough person not to feel they need to do something.
Everything is full and pure at its source and precisely there, not outside.
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