Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
| NUMBER: | 1234 |
| AUTHOR: | Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) |
| QUOTATION: | Not gold but only men can make A people great and strong; Men who for truth and honor’s sake Stand fast and suffer long. Brave men who work while others sleep, Who dare while others fly— They build a nation’s pillars deep And lift them to the sky. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Granger’s Index to Poetry, 6th ed., p. 898 (1973) says the author is unknown and that this is wrongly attributed to Emerson; the poem is not found in Emerson’s Complete Works (1903). |
| SUBJECTS: | Nation |