Send a Quote Enter a brief message. SendOk2 “When you strike at a king, you must kill him.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, and poetSource: Emerson's reply to undergraduate at Harvard, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s essay critical of the philosopher Plato. Elizabeth S. Sergeant, Fire under the Andes (Port Washington: Kennikat Press, 1927), p. 315.