Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
315
AUTHOR:
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82)
QUOTATION:
Is not every man sometimes a radical in politics? Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner, or before taking their rest; when they are sick, or aged. In the morning, or when their intellect or their conscience has been aroused; when they hear music, or when they read poetry, they are radicals.
ATTRIBUTION:
RALPH WALDO EMERSON, “New England Reformers,” lecture read before the Church of the Disciples, Amory Hall, Boston, Massachusetts, March 3, 1844.—Essays: Second Series (vol. 3 of The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson), p. 272 (1903).
