The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand.
Source: Essays, Compensation (First Series), 1841.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, (May 25 1803-1882), US philosopher, poet, essayist; He was the main spokesman of his time for moral optimism and belief in the individual: Self-Reliance, 1844.