“ The soul requires purity, but purity is not it; requires justice, but justice is not that ”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Over-Soul (1841). copy citation
| Author | Ralph Waldo Emerson |
|---|---|
| Source | The Over-Soul |
| Topic | purity justice |
| Date | 1841 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | in "Essays: First Series" |
| Note | |
| Weblink | https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays:_First_Series/The_Over-Soul |
Context
“This is the law of moral and of mental gain. The simple rise as by specific levity, not into a particular virtue, but into the region of all the virtues. They are in the spirit which contains them all. The soul requires purity, but purity is not it; requires justice, but justice is not that; requires beneficence, but is somewhat better; so that there is a kind of descent and accommodation felt when we leave speaking of moral nature, to urge a virtue which it enjoins. To the well-born child, all the virtues are natural, and not painfully acquired.”
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