Slavery is no scholar, no improver; it does not love the whistle of the railroad; it does not love the newspaper, the mail-bag, a college, a book or a preacher who has the absurd whim of saying what he thinks; it does not increase the white population; it does not improve the soil; everything goes to decay.

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

View all
"You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Compassion

"What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Integrity

"What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Self-awareness

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Awareness

"The writer is an explorer. Every step is an advance into a new land."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Creativity

More Adversity Quotes

View all
"Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful."

- Joshua J. Marine

Adversity

"The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it."

- Epicurus

Adversity

"It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness."

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Adversity

"The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself—the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us—that’s where it’s at."

- Jesse Owens

Adversity

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."

- Frederick Douglass

Adversity