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?
We've learned how to destroy, but not to create; how to waste, but not to build; how to kill men, but not how to save them; how to die, but seldom how to live.
There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none.
Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.
The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.
A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.
The question of how things will settle down is the only important question.
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