“ We fear power when we cannot master it; but just as far as we can master it, we make a slave and a beast of burden of it without hesitation. ”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., The Poet at the Breakfast-Table (1872). copy citation
| Author | Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. |
|---|---|
| Source | The Poet at the Breakfast-Table |
| Topic | fear power |
| Date | 1872 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2666/2666-h/2666-h.htm |
Context
“But the last, justice, at least as between the Infinite and the finite, has been so utterly dehumanized, disintegrated, decomposed, and diabolized in passing through the minds of the half-civilized banditti who have peopled and unpeopled the world for some scores of generations, that it has become a mere algebraic x, and has no fixed value whatever as a human conception.
As for power, we are outgrowing all superstition about that. We have not the slightest respect for it as such, and it is just as well to remember this in all our spiritual adjustments. We fear power when we cannot master it; but just as far as we can master it, we make a slave and a beast of burden of it without hesitation. We cannot change the ebb and flow of the tides, or the course of the seasons, but we come as near it as we can. We dam out the ocean, we make roses bloom in winter and water freeze in summer. We have no more reverence for the sun than we have for a fish-tail gas-burner;”
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