We strike directly at his power for mischief when we organize
the entire civil service of the nation and of the States on capacity,
integrity, experience, and not on political power.
And if we look further, considering the danger of concentration of power
in irresponsible hands, we see a new cause for alarm in undue federal
mastery and interference.
Poverty is not commonly a nurse of virtue, long continued, it is a
degeneration. It is almost as difficult for the very poor man to be
virtuous as for the very rich man; and very good and very rich at the
same time, says Socrates, a man cannot be. It is a great people that can
withstand great prosperity
We are in no vain chase of an equality which would eliminate all
individual initiative, and check all progress, by ignoring differences of
capacity and strength, and rating muscles equal to brains. But we are in
pursuit of equal laws, and a fairer chance of leading happy lives than
humanity in general ever had yet.
CAUSES OF DISCONTENT
[CW#17][cwcdc10.txt]3113
Now, content does not depend so much upon a man's actual as his relative
condition. Often it is not so much what I need, as what others have that
disturbs me. I should be content to walk from Boston to New York, and be
a fortnight on the way, if everybody else was obliged to walk who made
that journey.
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