
“Man is a make-believe animal — he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.”
Notes of a Journey through France and Italy (1824), ch. XVI
"Postscript", p. 153.
The Anarchist Cookbook (1971)
Context: If people depend on the state to make laws, to prevent themselves from doing what they really want to do, then I say these people are nuts. I mean to say, if I really want to do something, I don't particularly care if it's legal, illegal, moral, immoral, or amoral. I want to do it, so I do it. The only laws a man can truly respect are the ones he makes for himself.
“Man is a make-believe animal — he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.”
Notes of a Journey through France and Italy (1824), ch. XVI
vol. 1, p. 131
The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation (1941)
F 49
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)
“Only a man who is at one with the world can be at one with himself.”
Nur wer einig ist mit der Welt kann einig seyn mit sich selbst.
“Ideas,” Lucinde and the Fragments, P. Firchow, trans. (1991), § 130
8 September 1833. As quoted in: Maurice York and Rick Spaulding (2008): Ralph Waldo Emerson – The the Infinitude of the Private Man: A Biography. https://books.google.de/books?id=_pRMlDQavQwC&pg=PA240&dq=A+man+contains+all+that+is+needful+to+his+government+within+himself&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiahO73qqfeAhUwpIsKHRqzDswQ6AEIQDAD#v=onepage&q=A%20man%20contains%20all%20that%20is%20needful%20to%20his%20government%20within%20himself&f=false Chicago and Raleigh: Wrighwood Press, pages 240 – 241. Derived from: Edward Waldo Emerson and Waldo Emerson Forbes (1909): Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, with annotations, III, pages 200-201.
1820s, Journals (1822–1863)
Context: A man contains all that is needful to his government within himself. He is made a law unto himself. All real good or evil that can befal [sic] him must be from himself. He only can do himself any good or any harm. Nothing can be given to him or can taken from him but always there is a compensation.. There is a correspondence between the human soul and everything that exists in the world; more properly, everything that is known to man. Instead of studying things without the principles of them, all may be penetrated unto with him. Every act puts the agent in a new position. The purpose of life seems to be to acquaint a man with himself. He is not to live the future as described to him but to live the real future to the real present. The highest revelation is that God is in every man.
Concurring in Adarand v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=U10252&friend=oyez (1995).
1990s
Context: [I disagree] that there is a racial paternalism exception to the principle of equal protection. I believe that there is a 'moral [and] constitutional equivalence,' between laws designed to subjugate a race and those that distribute benefits on the basis of race in order to foster some current notion of equality. Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law.
“In limitations he first shows himself the master,
And the law can only bring us freedom.”
Was Wir Bringen (1802)