We rail at trade, but the historian of the world will see that it was the principle of liberty; that it settled America, and destroyed feudalism, and made peace and keeps peace; that it will abolish slavery.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on how trade has historically contributed to liberty and social progress.
Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes the dual nature of trade, portraying it as a force that has both established freedom and advanced societal change throughout history. He argues that trade is not merely an economic activity but a crucial element in shaping civilizations, leading to the fall of feudal systems, promoting peace, and eventually contributing to the abolition of slavery, thus highlighting its transformative impact on human society.
In practice
During a lecture on economic history, this quote can be used to illustrate the positive impacts of trade.
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?
He who floats with the current, who does not guide himself according to higher principles, who has no ideal, no convictions-such a man is . . . a thing moved, instead of a living and moving being-an echo, not a voice. The man who has no inner-life is a slave of his surroundings as the barometer is the obedient servant of the air.
I often think of the image only I can see now, and of which I’ve never spoken. It’s always there, in the same silence, amazing. It’s the only image of myself I like, the only one in which I recognize myself, in which I delight
The simplest thought, like the concept of the number one, has an elaborate logical underpinning.
Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.
Darkness coiled between what he wanted them to believe and the self he despised. It only made him more alone. How could you save someone when he didn't let you kno him? What a waste. The beauty he murdered in this place. He could never see what he had, only what he failed to achieve.
For years after Lydgate remembered the impression produced in him by this involuntary appeal-this cry from soul to soul, without other consciousness than their moving with kindred natures in the same embroiled medium, the same troublous fitfully-illuminated life.
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