Great is the soul, and plain. It is no flatterer, it is no follower; it never appeals from itself.
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Over-Soul (1841). copy citation

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Author Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source The Over-Soul
Topic soul
Date 1841
Language English
Reference in "Essays: First Series"
Note
Weblink https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays:_First_Series/The_Over-Soul

Context

“The reliance on authority measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul. The position men have given to Jesus, now for many centuries of history, is a position of authority. It characterizes themselves. It cannot alter the eternal facts. Great is the soul, and plain. It is no flatterer, it is no follower; it never appeals from itself. It believes in itself. Before the immense possibilities of man, all mere experience, all past biography, however spotless and sainted, shrinks away. Before that heaven which our presentiments foreshow us, we cannot easily praise any form of life we have seen or read of.” source