Quotation by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The tendencies of the times favor the idea of self-government, and leave the individual, for all code, to the rewards and penalties of his own constitution, which work with more energy than we believe, whilst we depend on artificial restraints.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. "Politics," Essays, Second Series (1844).
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