For what avail the plough or sail, Or land or life, if freedom fail?
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Without freedom, all other efforts in life like labor or survival become meaningless.
- In plain terms
- Freedom is more important than work or life itself.
- What can you take from it?
- Prioritize freedom above material gains.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What is worth dying for?
- Do you have true freedom?
Another view
Some argue survival needs must come before abstract freedom.
More from Ralph Waldo Emerson
Though love repine, and reason chafe, There came a voice without reply, - ''Tis man's perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die.'
Permalink to quote #231 If the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again.
Permalink to quote #233 Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime.
Permalink to quote #230
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