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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 641
AUTHOR: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82)
QUOTATION: For what avail the plough or sail,
Or land or life, if freedom fail?
ATTRIBUTION: RALPH WALDO EMERSON, “Boston,” stanza 15, The Complete Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 2, p. 897 (1929).

These words were also inscribed on a plaque in the stairwell of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.
SUBJECTS: Freedom