We rail at trade, but the historian of the world will see that it was the principle of liberty; that it settled America, and destroyed feudalism, and made peace and keeps peace; that it will abolish slavery.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on how trade has historically contributed to liberty and social progress.
Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes the dual nature of trade, portraying it as a force that has both established freedom and advanced societal change throughout history. He argues that trade is not merely an economic activity but a crucial element in shaping civilizations, leading to the fall of feudal systems, promoting peace, and eventually contributing to the abolition of slavery, thus highlighting its transformative impact on human society.
In practice
During a lecture on economic history, this quote can be used to illustrate the positive impacts of trade.
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?
The scapegoat has always had the mysterious power of unleashing man's ferocious pleasure in torturing, corrupting, and befouling.
When all the arguments have been forgotten, this central fact will remain. The two nations fought a single war, and their quarrels were the quarrels of brothers.
Behind the slogans lay an intellectual vacuum.
Of the three official objects of our prison system: vengeance, deterrence, and reformation of the criminal, only one is achieved; and that is the one which is nakedly abominable.
We are the children of our landscape; it dictates behavior and even thought in the measure to which we are responsive to it.
I've noticed that even people who believe in fate look both ways before crossing the street.
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