"Act, if you like,—but you do it at your peril. Men's actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action. What they have done commits and enforces them to do the same again. The first act, which was to be an experiment, becomes a sacrament. The fiery reformer embodies his aspiration in some rite or covenant, and he and his friends cleave to the form, and lose the aspiration. The Quaker has established Quakerism, the Shaker has established his monastery and his dance; and, although each prates of spirit, there is no spirit, but repetition, which is anti-spiritual."
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Academics from the United StatesPhilosophers from the United States19th-century philosophersRomantic poetsEssayists from the United States
Original Language: English
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Goethe; or, the Writer
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803 – 1882
US-amerikanischer Philosoph und Dichter
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