Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Liberty

• The less government we have the better.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Government, Liberty

  Essays, Second Series "Politics" (1844)

• These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of everyone of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Reality, Self, Names

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.42, 谷月社

• Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Law, Good Man

  "Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson".

• Liberty is a slow fruit.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Liberty, Fruit

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2000). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.988, Modern Library

• Freedom is not the right to do as you please, but the liberty to do as you should.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Liberty, Should, Please

• We want a state of things in which crime will not pay, a state of things which allows every man the largest liberty compatible with the liberty of every other man.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Liberty, Want

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1843-1871”, p.335, University of Georgia Press

• In dealing with the State, we ought to remember that its institutions are not aboriginal, though they existed before we were born; that they are not superior to the citizen; that every one of them was once the act of a single man; every law and usage was a man's expedient to meet a particular case; that they all are imitable, all alterable; we may make as good; we may make better.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Law, Liberty

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.378, Modern Library

• If you cannot be free be as free as you can.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Freedom, Liberty, Ifs

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joel Porte (1982). “Emerson in His Journals”, p.205, Harvard University Press

• A part of fate is the freedom of man. Forever wells up the impulse of choosing and acting in his soul.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Freedom, Fate, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1859). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: The conduct of life”, p.23

• There never was a strong character that was not made strong by discipline of the will; there never was a strong people that did not rank subordination and discipline among the signal virtues. Subjection to moods is the mark of a deteriorating morality. There is no baser servitude than that of the man whose caprices are his masters, and a nation composed of such men could not long preserve its liberties.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Strong, Character, Men

• Liberty is slow fruit. It is never cheap; it is made difficult because freedom is the accomplishment and perfectness of man.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Freedom, Men, Liberty

• 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.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Peace, America, Liberty

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.4089, Delphi Classics

• If we must accept fate we are not less compelled to affirm liberty, the significance of the individual, the grandeur of duty, the power of character.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Fate, Destiny

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.254, Penguin

• Government has come to be a trade, and is managed solely on commercial principles. A man plunges into politics to make his fortune, and only cares that the world shall last his days.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Liberty, Principles

  Thomas Carlyle, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1888). “The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, L834-l872”

• Nothing is more disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper preamble like a Declaration of Independence, or the statute right to vote, by those who have never dared to think or to act.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Freedom, Men, Thinking

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.84, Penguin

• The world exists, as I understand it, to teach the science of liberty.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Thinking, Liberty, World

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1843-1871”, p.341, University of Georgia Press

• Lawyers are a prudent race though not very fond of liberty.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Race, Liberty, Prudent

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joel Porte (1982). “Emerson in His Journals”, p.413, Harvard University Press

• We are sure that, though we know not how, necessity does comport with liberty, the individual with the world, my polarity with thespirit of the times. The riddle of the age has for each a private solution.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Understanding, Age, Liberty

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.943, Library of America

• Behind every individual closes organization; before him opens liberty,--the Better, the Best. The first and worse races are dead.The second and imperfect races are dying out, or remain for the maturing of the higher. In the latest race, in man, every generosity, every new perception, the love and praise he extorts from his fellows, are certificates of advance out of fate into freedom.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Freedom, Fate, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1982). “Emerson: Selected Essays”, p.360, Penguin

• Wild liberty develops iron conscience. Want of liberty, by strengthening law and decorum, stupefies conscience.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Freedom, Law, Iron

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Ernest Spiller, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Joseph Slater, Jean Ferguson Carr (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays, second series”, p.124, Harvard University Press

• Wild liberty breeds iron conscience; natures with great impulses have great resources, and return from far.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Freedom, Iron, Liberty

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt McLaughlin (2010). “The Laws of Nature: Excerpts from the Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.71, North Atlantic Books

• An individual is an encloser. Time and space, liberty and necessity, truth and thought, are left at large no longer.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Space, Liberty, Individualism

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.330, Modern Library

• The word liberty in the mouth of Mr. Webster sounds like the word love in the mouth of a courtesan.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Liberty, Sound, Mouths

  Journal, Feb. 1851

You May Also Like:

Henry David Thoreau

Walt Whitman

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Margaret Fuller

Emily Dickinson

Edgar Allan Poe

Herman Melville