"It's the beauty within us that makes it possible for us to recognize the beauty around us. The question is not what you look at but what you see."
"America is said to be the arena on which the battle of freedom is to be fought; but surely it cannot be freedom in a merely political sense that is meant. Even if we grant that the American has freed himself from a political tyrant, he is still the slave of an economical and moral tyrant. Now that the republic--the res- publica--has been settled, it is time to look after the res- privata,--the private state,--to see, as the Roman Senate charged its consuls, "ne quid res-PRIVATA detrimenti caperet," that the private state receive no detriment."
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Source: Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.50, David M Gross
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