Ralph Waldo Emerson Quote - Liberty Quotes Blog

"The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature,
to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand."

by:	Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, and poet
Source:	Essays, 1841
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Categories:	Altruist, Persecution, Utopia
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Reader comments about this quote:

-- Joe, Rochester, MI
Nice thought, but it has to reach too far for those analogies... -- Anonymous, Reston, VA US
Emerson is a great writer but this quote makes no sense to me. -- me again
I suppose free thought and the free interchange of ideas are as natural in human society as a stream running downhill. Persecution is the attempt to control the free thoughts of men to protect the rest of society from the heretical thoughts. It is much like damming a stream to protect a valley from floods. It takes a massive dam to stop a small stream. -- Ken, Allyn, WA
This doesn't make sense to me. Then again, maybe that's the point. Persecution is pointless. -- Anonymous