"Again, the great number of cultivated men..." - Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Again, the great number of cultivated men keep each other up to a high standard. The habit of meeting well-read and knowing men teaches the art of omission and selection.
More by Ralph Waldo Emerson
“In good company, the individuals merge their egotism into a social soul exactly co-extensive with the several consciousnesses there present.”
“Invention breeds invention. No sooner is the electric telegraph devised than gutta-percha, the very material it requires, is found. The aeronaut is provided with gun-cotton, the very fuel he wants for his balloon.”
“Life is a festival only to the wise. Seen from the nook and chimneyside of prudence, it wears a ragged and dangerous front.”
More on Learning
“I write for the unlearned about things in which I am unlearned myself.”
“They teach in academies far too many things, and far too much that is useless.”
“Read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugene and Frederic. ... This is the only way to become a great general and master the secrets of the art of war.”
More on Society
“What Englishman will give his mind to politics as long as he can afford to keep a motor car?”
“Eternal truths will be neither true nor eternal unless they have fresh meaning for every new social situation.”
“Not until he acquires European manners does the American anarchist become the gentleman who assures you that people cannot be mademoral by Act of Parliament (the truth being that it is only by Acts of Parliament that men in large communities can be made moral, even when they want to).”