You must read Plato. But you must hold him at arm's length and say, 'Plato, you have delighted and edified mankind for two thousand years. What have you to say to me? (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

You must read Plato. But you must hold him at arm's length and say, 'Plato, you have delighted and edified mankind for two thousand years. What have you to say to me?

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Related topics

hold length mankind read say thousand years plato

Related quotes

You know that I write slowly. This is chiefly because I am never satisfied until I have said as much as possible in a few words, and writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length. View quote
Carl Friedrich Gauss
I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say; I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger. View quote
Harriet Tubman
If you could say of any one individual that the court as an institution is the length and shadow of that individual, surely it would be John Marshall. View quote
William Rehnquist
The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will. View quote
Michel de Montaigne
Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from the birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear. View quote
Thomas Babington Macaulay