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Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.

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Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Every artist was first an amateur.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Fame is proof that people are gullible.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show for any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It seems to me that perfection of means and confusion of goals seems to characterize our age.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourself.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Skill to do comes of doing.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Some have been thought brave because they were afraid to run away.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What you are shouts so loud in my ears I cannot hear what you say.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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All conservatives are such from personal defects. They have been effeminated by position or nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the defensive.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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By the rude bridge that arched the flood,Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,Here once the embattled farmers stood,And fired the shot heard round the world.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Life is eating us up. We shall be fables presently. Keep cool it will be all one a hundred years hence.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Love and you shall be loved.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Men are what their mothers made them.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Nature is a mutable cloud, which is always and never the same.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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People only see what they are prepared to see.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Tell them dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,Then beauty is its own excuse for beingWhy thou wert there, O rival of the roseI never sought to ask, I never knewBut, in my simple ignorance supposeThe selfsame power that brought me there brought you.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The less government we have the better.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest applause.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge, and fox, and squirrel.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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They can conquer who believe they can. He has not learned the first lesson in life who does not every day surmount a fear.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Thought is the seed of action.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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To be great is to be misunderstood.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What is a weed A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half an hour.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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When it is darkest, men see the stars.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The glory of friendship is not the outstreched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Before we acquire great power, we must acquire wisdom to use it well.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others with out getting a few drops on yourself.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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To know how to suggest is the great art of teaching.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could some blunders and absurdities have crept in forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Always do what you are afraid to do.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Be and not seem.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Character is what can do without success.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Every man I meet is in some way my superior.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We are born believing. A man bears beliefs, as a tree bears apples.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It is not length of life, but depth of life.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It is very hard to be simple enough to be good.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The only way to have a friend is to be one.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A weed is just a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A chief event in life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Give all to love; obey thy heart.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In the woods is perpetual youth.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little course, and you may get your coat soiled or torn What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invated by worry, fret and anxiety.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If a man knows the law, find out, though he live in a pine shanty, and resort to him. And if a man can pipe or sing, so as to wrap the imprisoned soul in an elysium; or can paint a landscape, and convey into souls and ochres all the enchantments of Spring or Autumn; or can liberate and intoxicate all people who hear him with delicious songs and verses; it is certain that the secret cannot be kept; the first witness tells it to a second, and men go by fives and tens and fifties to his doors.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such who are in the institution wish to get out and such as are out wish to get in.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The years teach much which the days never knew.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air…

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What we call results are beginnings.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Cities force growth and make people talkative and entertaining, but they also make them artificial.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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One man's justice is another's injustice one man's beauty another's ugliness one man's wisdom another's folly.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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When you strike at a king, you must kill him.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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As soon as there is life there is danger.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Be careful what you set your heart on, for it will surely be yours.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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To laugh often and much to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others to leave the world a little better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Every sweet has its sour every evil its good.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Whoever is open, loyal, true of humane and affable demeanour honourable himself, and in his judgement of others faithful to his word as to law, and faithful alike to God and man....such a man is a true gentleman.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of you first.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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All mankind love a lover.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Do not say things. What you are stands over you the while and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Knowledge exists to be imparted.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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They say the cows laid out Boston. Well, there are worse surveyors.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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This world we live in is but thickened light.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Life is a festival only to the wise.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Each man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well. He has changed his market-cart into a chariot of the sun.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The things taught in colleges and schools are not an education, but the means of education.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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For everything you have missed, you have gained something else and for everything you gain, you lose something.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Life is a progress, and not a station.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Take egotism out and you would castrate the benefactors.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree or draw a child by studying the outlines of its form merely . . . but by watching for a time his motions and plays, the painter enters into his nature and can then draw him at every attitude . . .

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A good intention but fixed and resolute - bent on high and holy ends, we shall find means to them on every side and at every moment; and even obstacles and opposition will but make us "like the fabled specter-ships," which sail the fastest in the very teeth of the wind.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A good intention clothes itself with power.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A man builds a fine house and now he has a master, and a task for life he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A man is related to all nature.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A man makes inferiors his superiors by heat; self-control is the rule.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A man of genius is privileged only as far as he is genius. His dullness is as insupportable as any other dullness.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam that flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his own thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts they come back to us with a sort of alienated majesty.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A man's wife has more power over him than the state has.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A true friend is somebody who can make us do what we can.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Adopt the pace of nature.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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All men are in some degree impressed by the face of the world; some men even to delight. This love of beauty is taste. Others have the same love in such success that, not content with admiring, they seek to embody it in new forms. The creation of beauty is art.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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As we grow old the beauty steals inward.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Be as beneficent as the sun or the sea, but if your rights as a rational being are trenched on, die on the first inch of your territory.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul unbelief, in denying them.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Better to be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Character is higher than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Children are all foreigners.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Common sense is as rare as genius.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Condense some daily experience into a glowing symbol, and an audience is electrified.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Democracy is morose, and runs to anarchy.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little course, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Do what you know and perception is converted into character.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Each man has his own vocation his talent is his call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Each man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well -- he has changed his market-cart into a chariot of the sun.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Every burned book or house enlightens the world every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Every great and commanding moment in the annals of the world is the triumph of some enthusiasm.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Every hero becomes a bore at last.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Every man is a divinity in disguise, a God playing the fool.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Far or forgot to me is nearShadow and sunlight are the sameThe vanished gods to me appearAnd one to me are shame and fame.They reckon ill who leave me outWhen me they fly, I am the wingsI am the doubter and the doubt,And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it well and serenely...

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Four snakes gliding up and down a hollow for no purpose that I could see -- not to eat, not for love, but only gliding.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Go often to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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God enters by a private door into every individual.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Great men are they who see that the spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Happiness is a perfume which you cannot pour on someone without getting some on yourself.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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He is great who confers the most benefits.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all minds.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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He who has a thousand friendsHas not a friend to spare,While he who has one enemyShall meet him everywhere.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Heaven always bears some proportion to earth. The god of the cannibal will be a cannibal, of the crusades a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Here is the world, sound as a nut, perfect, not the smallest piece of chaos left, never a stitch nor an end, not a mark of haste, or botching, or second thought; but the theory of the world is a thing of shreds and patches.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Hitch your wagon to a star.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I am sure of this, that by going much alone a man will get more of a noble courage in thought and word than from all the wisdom that is in books.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I awoke with devout thanksgiving for my friends.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I have heard with admiring submission the experience of the lady who declared that the sense of being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity which religion is powerless to bestow.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I like to have a man's knowledge comprehend more than one class of topics, one row of shelves. I like a man who likes to see a fine barn as well as a good tragedy.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I look on that man as happy, who, when there is question of success, looks into his work for a reply.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the Stern Fact, the Sad Self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I see her not dispirited, not weak, but well, remembering that she has seen dark times before, indeed with a kind of instinct that she sees a little better in a cloudy day.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I used to always think that I'd look back on us crying and laugh, but, I never thought I'd look back on us laughing and cry.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men, or they are no better than dreams.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If a man knew anything, he would sit in a corner and be modest; but he is such an ignorant peacock, that he goes bustling up and down, and hits on extraordinary discoveries.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles, or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution when the old and the new stand side by side...when the glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era This time...is a very good one...

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If you can not find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it Dogen Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul unbelief, denying them.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere. Words to definitely think about.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Imitation is suicide.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In England every man you meet is some man's son in America, he may be some man's father.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In the matter of religion, people eagerly fasten their eyes on the difference between their own creed and yours whilst the charm of the study is in finding the agreements and identities in all the religions of humanity.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Insist on yourself never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession... Do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Insist on yourself never imitate... Every great man is unique.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It is better and easier to build boys ( minor tune up ) then to repair men ( major overhaul. )

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It is commonly observed that a sudden wealth, like a prize drawn in a lottery or a large bequest to a poor family, does not permanently enrich. They have served no apprenticeship to wealth, and with the rapid wealth come rapid claims which they do not know how to deny, and the treasure is quickly dissipated.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It makes a great difference in the force of a sentence, whether a man be behind it or no.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Let not a man guard his dignity, but let his dignity guard him.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Life is a perpetual instruction in cause and effect.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Love is the essence of God.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations. The only sin is limitation. As soon as you once come up with a man's limitations, it is all over with him.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Men's actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Money often costs too much.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors without an apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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My evening visitors, if they cannot see the clock, should find the time in my face.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Nature hates calculators.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Never read a book that is not a year old.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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No facts are to me sacred none are profane I simply experiment, an endless seeker with no Past at my back.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Often a certain abdication of prudence and foresight is an element of success.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Only those books come down which deserve to last . All the gilt edges, vellum and morocco, all the presentation copies to all the libraries will not preserve a book in circulation beyond its intrinsic date.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Our knowledge is the amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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People wish to be settled. It is only as far as they are unsettled that there is any hope for them.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Proverbs are the literature of reason, or the statements of absolute truth, without qualification. Like the sacred books of each nation, they are the sanctuary of its intuitions.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Real friendship is shown in times of trouble prosperity is full of friends.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Science does not know its debt to imagination. Goethe did not believe that a great naturalist could exist without this faculty.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Self-trust is the essence of heroism

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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So much of our time is preparation, so much is routine, and so much retrospect, that the path of each man's genius contracts itself to a very few hours.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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So of cheerfulness, or a good temper, the more it is spent, the more it remains.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Sooner of later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon-balls and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Spiritual force is stronger than material force thoughts rule the world.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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That which we call sin in others is experiment for us.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight with a verse given in a happy quotation than in the poem.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The ancestor of every action is a thought.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The angels are so enamoured of the language that is spoken in heaven, that they will not distort their lips with the hissing and unmusical dialects of men, but speak their own, whether there be any who understand it or not.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The education of the will is the object of our existence.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be an honest or well intended halfness; a non performance of that which is pretended to be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of performance. The balking of the intellect, is comedy and it announces itself in the pleasant spasms we call laughter.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The faith that stand on authority is not faith.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The first wealth is health.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The greatest homage we can pay truth is to use it.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The imbecility of men is always inviting the impudence of power.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the ordinary.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The life of man is the true romance, which when it is valiantly conduced, will yield the imagination a higher joy than any fiction.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men around to his opinion twenty years later.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed there is no winter and no night all tragedies, all ennuis, vanish,-all duties even.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The more he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The next thing to saying a good thing yourself, is to quote one.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The only gift is a portion of thyself.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The only reward of virtue is virtue -- the only way to have a friend is to be one.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The people are to be taken in very small doses.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for greatest, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The power of love, as the basis of a State, has never been tried.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The reason why all men honor love is because it looks up, and not down aspires and not despairs.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The reason why men do not obey us is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The reliance on property is...the want of self-reliance. Men measure the esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what each is. But a cultivated man becomes ashamed of his property...(Essays)

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The reward for a thing well done is to have done it.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The sea, washing the equator and the poles, offers its perilous aid, and the power and empire that follow it... Beware of me, it says, but if you can hold me, I am the key to all the lands.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The thirst for adventure is the vent which Destiny offers a war, a crusade, a gold mine, a new country, speak to the imagination and offer swing and play to the confined powers.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The truth, the hope of any time, must always be sought in minorities.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The wise man always throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The wise man in the storm prays God, not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The wise through excess of wisdom is made a fool.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The world belongs to the energetic.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The world is emblematic. Parts of speech are metaphors because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There are always those who think they know what is your responsibility better than you do.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There are two classes of poets - the poets by education and practice, these we respect; and poets by nature, these we love.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There is always room for a man of force, and he makes room for many.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There is no thought in any mind, but it quickly tends to convert itself into a power.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There is nothing capricious in nature and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feel it.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Thought is the blossom language the bud action the fruit behind it.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Tis the good reader that makes the good book.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men-that is genius.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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To fill the hour-that is happiness.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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To know one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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To the dull mind all nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world sparkles with light.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Tobacco, coffee, alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine, are weak dilutions the surest poison is time.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Trust men and they will be true to you treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Truth is beautiful, without doubt but so are lies.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to affairs.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Universities are of course hostile to geniuses, which, seeing and using ways of their own, discredit the routine as churches and monasteries persecute youthful saints.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We aim above the mark to hit the mark.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We are born believing. A man bears beliefs, as a tree bears beauty.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We are prisoners of ideas.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation-rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We become what we think about all day long.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We do what we must, and call it by the best names.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We know better than we do. We do not yet possess ourselves.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We take care of our health, we lay up money, we make our roof tight and our clothing sufficient, but who provides wisely that he shall not be wanting the best property of all -- friends?

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What a new face courage puts on everything.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What a searching preacher of self-command is the varying phenomenon of health.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What can we see, read, acquire, but ourselves. Take the book, my friend, and read your eyes out, you will never find there what I find.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What greater pain could mortals have than this To see their children dead before their eyes

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What I must do is all that concerns me. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What is the hardest thing in the world To think.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What omniscience has music! So absolutely impersonal, yet every sufferer feels his secret sorrow soothed.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What you see is what it is!

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Who so would be a man, must be a nonconformist.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Whoever is open, loyal, true; of humane and affable demeanour; honourable himself, and in his judgement of others; faithful to his word as to law, and faithful alike to God and man....such a man is a true gentleman.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Work is victory.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he know that every day is Doomsday.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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You cannot burn out until you catch on fire

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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You must pay for conformity. All goes well as long as you run with conformists. But you, who are honest men in other particulars, know that there is alive somewhere a man whose honesty reaches to this point also, that he shall not kneel to false gods, and, on the day when you meet him, you sink into the class of counterfeits.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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