"Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the..." - Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.
More by Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The world exists, as I understand it, to teach the science of liberty.”
“Women see better than men. Men see lazily, if they do not expect to act. Women see quite without any wish to act.”
“The American who has been confined, in his own country, to the sight of buildings designed after foreign models, is surprised on entering York Minster or St. Peter's at Rome, by the feeling that these structures are imitations also,--faint copies of an invisible archetype.”
More on Society
“Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one.”
“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”
“One of the consequences of such notions as ‘entitlements’ is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence.”
More on Conformity
“All think what other people think;All know the man their neighbor knows.Lord, what would they sayDid their Catullus walk that way?”
“The mass of men are very easily imposed on. They have their runways in which they always travel, and are sure to fall into any pit or box-trap set therein.”
“[The] erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardised citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.”