“Do what we can, summer will have its flies: if we walk in the woods, we must feed mosquitos: if we go a-fishing, we must expect a wet coat.”

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Do what we can, summer will have its flies: if we walk in the woods, we must feed mosquitos: if we go a-fishing, we mus…" by Ralph Waldo Emerson?
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson 727
American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803–1882

Related quotes

Ralph Waldo Emerson quote: “We do what we must, and call it by the best names we can.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“We do what we must, and call it by the best names we can.”

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience

Colum McCann photo
Thurgood Marshall photo

“To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it;”

Charles Caleb Colton (1777–1832) British priest and writer

Vol. I; CCCCXXVII (7th Edition, published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, in 1821)
Lacon
Context: To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it; the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary.

Jeannette Piccard photo

“If we do not add something to the knowledge of cosmic rays by our trip to the stratosphere this summer, we had better not go. We had better stay on the ground, be hewers of wood and drawers of water.”

Jeannette Piccard (1895–1981) American balloonist, scientist, teacher and priest

Quoted in [Oakes, Claudia M., United States Women in Aviation: 1930-1939, Smithsonian Studies in Air and Space, 1985, http://www.sil.si.edu/smithsoniancontributions/AirSpace/text/SSAS-0006.txt]

Ernest King photo

“The way to victory is long.
The going will be hard.
We will do the best we can with what we've got.
We must have more planes and ships- at once.
Then it will be our turn to strike.
We will win through- in time.”

Ernest King (1878–1956) United States Navy admiral, Chief of Naval Operations

King's first statement as Commander-in-Chief, United States fleet, sent on 24 December 1941. As quoted in History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume Three: The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931-April 1942 (1948) by Samuel Eliot Morison, p. 255

James Branch Cabell photo

“People must have both their dreams and their dinners in this world, and when we go out of it we must take what we find. That is all.”

James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) American author

Niafer, in Book Ten : At Manuel's Tomb, Ch. LXIX : Economics of Jurgen
The Silver Stallion (1926)

George MacDonald photo

“We must do the thing we must
Before the thing we may;
We are unfit for any trust
Till we can and do obey.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

Willie's Question
The Disciple and Other Poems (1867)

Douglas MacArthur photo

“We have known the bitterness of defeat and the exultation of triumph, and from both we have learned there can be no turning back. We must go forward to preserve in peace what we won in war.”

Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines

1940s, Victory broadcast (1945)
Context: We have known the bitterness of defeat and the exultation of triumph, and from both we have learned there can be no turning back. We must go forward to preserve in peace what we won in war.
A new era is upon us. Even the lesson of victory itself brings with it profound concern, both for our future security and the survival of civilization. The destructiveness of the war potential, through progressive advances in scientific discovery, has in fact now reached a point which revises the traditional concepts of war.

Bernice King photo

Related topics