“ Love is fabled to be blind; but kindness is necessary to perception; love is not a hood, but an eye-water. ”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Prudence (1841). copy citation
| Author | Ralph Waldo Emerson |
|---|---|
| Source | Prudence |
| Topic | kindness perception |
| Date | 1841 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | in "Essays: First Series" |
| Note | |
| Weblink | https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays:_First_Series/Prudence |
Context
“But the sturdiest offender of your peace and of the neighbourhood, if you rip up his claims, is as thin and timid as any; and the peace of society is often kept, because, as children say, one is afraid, and the other dares not. Far off, men swell, bully, and threaten; bring them hand to hand, and they are a feeble folk.
It is a proverb, that 'courtesy costs nothing'; but calculation might come to value love for its profit. Love is fabled to be blind; but kindness is necessary to perception; love is not a hood, but an eye-water. If you meet a sectary, or a hostile partisan, never recognize the dividing lines; but meet on what common ground remains, — if only that the sun shines, and the rain rains for both; the area will widen very fast, and ere you know it the boundary mountains, on which the eye had fastened, have melted into air.” source
It is a proverb, that 'courtesy costs nothing'; but calculation might come to value love for its profit. Love is fabled to be blind; but kindness is necessary to perception; love is not a hood, but an eye-water. If you meet a sectary, or a hostile partisan, never recognize the dividing lines; but meet on what common ground remains, — if only that the sun shines, and the rain rains for both; the area will widen very fast, and ere you know it the boundary mountains, on which the eye had fastened, have melted into air.” source
