We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid
of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. We want men
and women who shall renovate life and our social state but we see that
most natures are insolvent, cannot satisfy their own wants, have an
ambition out of all proportion to their practical force, and so do lean
and beg day and night continually. Our housekeeping is mendicant, our
arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religion we have not chosen
but society has chosen for us. We are parlor soldiers. The rugged battle
of fate, where strength is born, we shun.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays
of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. We want men
and women who shall renovate life and our social state but we see that
most natures are insolvent, cannot satisfy their own wants, have an
ambition out of all proportion to their practical force, and so do lean
and beg day and night continually. Our housekeeping is mendicant, our
arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religion we have not chosen
but society has chosen for us. We are parlor soldiers. The rugged battle
of fate, where strength is born, we shun.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays
Related:
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Our youth, our joys,
our all we have, And pays us but with age and dust... - We make our own fortunes and call them
our fate... - We are all afraid -- for our confidence, for the future,
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we will cry over things we used to laugh & our new...
From the same category:
- Be sure you're right,
then go ahead. ... - In order to acquire a growing and lasting respect in society,
it is a good thing, if you possess great talent, to... - I never travel without my diary.
One should always have something sensational to read... - Beware when the great God lets loose a genius upon the world.
Then all things are at risk. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson... - I had a monumental idea this morning,
but I didn't like it. ...
