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?
A world of few choices, whether in jeans or mates, is a world in which individual differences become sources of alienation, unhappiness, even self-loathing. If no jeans fit, you'll feel uncomfortable or inferior. If no housing developments reflect your taste for unique architecture, you'll write screeds against philistine mass culture.
Man is not equally moral at all hours, this is well known. If his morality is judged to be the capability for great self-sacrificing resolutions and self-denial (which, when continuous and grown habitual, are called holiness)
Trees bear fruits only to be eaten by others; the fields grown grains, but they are consumed by the world. Cows give milk, but she doesn't drink it herself - that is left to others. Clouds send rain only to quench the parched earth. In such giving, there is little space for selfishness.
One should see the world, and see himself as a scale with an equal balance of good and evil. When he does one good deed the scale is tipped to the good - he and the world is saved. When he does one evil deed the scale is tipped to the bad - he and the world is destroyed.
Our tolerance for forms of religious expression we disagree with is a precise barometer of our own spiritual security.
Remember that you will create peace only when you are peaceful.
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