Conservatism is affluent and openhanded, but there is a cunning juggle in riches. I observe that they take somewhat for everything they give. I look bigger, but am less; I have more clothes, but am nit so warm; more armor, but less courage; more books, but less wit.
ATTRIBUTION:
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. Speech, December 9, 1841, at the Masonic Temple, Boston, Massachusetts. “The Conservative,” Nature, Addresses, and Lectures (1849).
