"Senators and presidents have climbed so high..." - Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Senators and presidents have climbed so high with pain enough, not because they think the place specially agreeable, but as an apology for real worth, and to vindicate their manhood in our eyes. This conspicuous chair is their compensation to themselves for being of a poor, cold, hard nature.
More by Ralph Waldo Emerson
More on Politics
“There are some natures which never grow large enough to speak out and say a bad act is a bad act, until they have inquired into the politics or the nationality of the man who did it.”
“I'm not a politician. And I don't want to be.”
“In every party there is one person who, through his dotingly credulous enunciation of party principles, incites the other members to defection.”
More on Power
“I wish I were the Commander in Chief in India... I should do my utmost to exterminate the Race upon whom the stain of the late cruelties rested.”
“Perdiccas threatened to put him to death unless he came to him, "That's nothing wonderful," Diogenes said, "for a beetle or a tarantula would do the same."”
“A people which is able to say everything becomes able to do everything.”