"We do not make a world of..." - Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson
We do not make a world of our own, but fall into institutions already made, and have to accommodate ourselves to them to be useful at all.
An image illustrating the quote: "We do not make a world of our own, but fall into institutions already made, and ..."
More by Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The time will come when the evil forms we have known can no more be organized. Man's culture can spare nothing, wants all material. He is to convert all impediments into instruments, all enemies into power.”
“In youth, we clothe ourselves with rainbows, with hope & love, & go as brave as the zodiack. In age we put out another sort of perspiration; gout, fever, rheumatism, caprice, doubt, fretting, and avarice.”
“O Day of days when we can read! The reader and the book, either without the other is naught.”
More on Society
“Equality of possessions is no doubt right, but, as men could not make might obey right, they have made right obey might.”
“It seems to me that society usually wins. There are, to be sure, free spirits in the world, but their freedom, in the last analysis, is not much greater than that of a canary in a cage. They may leap from perch to perch; they may bathe and guzzle at their will; they may flap their wings and sing. But they are still in the cage, and soon or late it conquers them.”
“We're doing terribly. We're leaving these unborn children trillions of dollars of debt, which is just horrific. We're leaving nuclear weapons - enough to end life as we know it - all over the planet. We're leaving a legacy of violence and killing and guns.”