“ The ingenuity of man has always been dedicated to the solution of one problem, — how to detach the sensual sweet, the sensual strong, the sensual bright, &c., from the moral sweet, the moral deep, the moral fair ”
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Compensation (1841). copy citation

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Author Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source Compensation
Topic solution problem
Date 1841
Language English
Reference in "Essays: First Series"
Note
Weblink https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays:_First_Series/Compensation

Context

“Whilst thus the world will be whole, and refuses to be disparted, we seek to act partially, to sunder, to appropriate; for example, — to gratify the senses, we sever the pleasure of the senses from the needs of the character. The ingenuity of man has always been dedicated to the solution of one problem, — how to detach the sensual sweet, the sensual strong, the sensual bright, &c., from the moral sweet, the moral deep, the moral fair; that is, again, to contrive to cut clean off this upper surface so thin as to leave it bottomless; to get a one end, without an other end. The soul says, Eat; the body would feast. The soul says, The man and woman shall be one flesh and one soul;” source