"Physical force has no value, where there..." - Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Physical force has no value, where there is nothing else. Snow in snow-banks, fire in volcanoes and solfataras is cheap. The luxury of ice is in tropical countries, and midsummer days. The luxury of fire is, to have a little on our hearth; and of electricity, not the volleys of the charged cloud, but the manageable stream on the battery-wires. So of spirit, or energy; the rests or remains of it in the civil and moral man, are worth all the cannibals in the Pacific.
More by Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust.”
“If I could put my hand on the north star, would it be as beautiful? The sea is lovely, but when we bathe in it the beauty forsakesall the near water. For the imagination and senses cannot be gratified at the same time.”
“All men are poets at heart. They serve nature for bread, but her loveliness overcomes them sometimes.”
More on Value
“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.”
“The value of an idea has nothing whatever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.”
“You're beautiful, but you're empty...One couldn't die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she's the one I've watered. Since she's the one I put under glass, since she's the one I sheltered behind the screen. Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three butterflies). Since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose.”
More on Power
“France has more need of me than I have need of France.”
“No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, you're screwed because it's all fixed and rigged. There is a club and you ain't in it.”
“We are committed to a world in which we keep America safe, but we recognize that our power doesn't just flow from our extraordinary military but also flows from the strength in our ideals and our principles and our values.”