Government has been a fossil: it should be a plant.
Interpretation
Government should evolve and grow like a living organism instead of being outdated and stagnant.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that government should not be a rigid and unchanging structure, akin to a fossil, but rather, it should be dynamic and capable of growth, like a plant. This metaphor emphasizes the importance of adaptability and innovation in governance, advocating for systems that can respond to the changing needs of society instead of remaining fossilized in outdated practices.
In practice
During a speech on reform, one might say, 'Like Emerson stated, government has been a fossil; it should be a plant to thrive with society.'
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
On why I don't trust democracy without extremely powerful systems of accountability and recall What seems to be generosity is often only disguised ambition - which despises small interests to gain great ones.
In all the co-temporary discussions and comments, which the Constitution underwent, it was constantly justified and recommended on the ground, that the powers not given to the government, were withheld from it.
While the notion that torture works has been glorified in television shows and movies, the simple truth is this: torture has never been an effective interrogation method.
A fraudulent intent, however carefully concealed at the outset, will generally, in the end, betray itself.
A tyrant... is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.
That in the soul which is called the mind is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing.
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