Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
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A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.
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When Shakespeare is charged with debts to his authors, Landor replies, 'Yet he was more original than his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them into life.'
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Self-trust is the first secret of success.
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Pass in, pass in, the angels say, In to the upper doors; Nor count compartments of the floors, But mount to Paradise By the stairway of surprise.
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I think no virtue goes with size; The reason of all cowardice Is, that men are overgrown, And, to be valiant, must come down To the titmouse dimension.
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Nor sequent centuries could hit Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit.
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It costs a beautiful person no exertion to paint her image on our eyes; yet how splendid is that benefit! It costs no more for a wise soul to convey his quality to other men.
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Blessed are those who have no talent!
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Nature abhors the old, and old age seems the only disease; all others run into this one.
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Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.
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Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.
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The young men were born with knives in their brain, a tendency to introversion, self-dissection, anatomizing of motives.
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I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them.
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All that Shakespeare says of the king, yonder slip of a boy that reads in the corner feels to be true of himself.
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Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.
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England’s genius filled all measure Of heart and soul, of strength and pleasure, Gave to the mind its emperor, And life was larger than before: Nor sequent centuries could hit Orbit and sum of Shakespeare’s wit. The men who lived with him became Poets, for the air was fame.
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History must be this or it is nothing. Every law which the state enacts indicates a fact in human nature; that is all. We must in ourselves see the necessary reason of every fact, - see how it could and must be.
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I trust a good deal to common fame, as we all must. If a 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.
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The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it.
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The music that can deepest reach, And cure all ill, is cordial speech.
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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.
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If the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again.
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I like a church, I like a cowl, I love a prophet of the soul, And on my heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles; Yet not for all his faith can see, Would I that cowled churchman be. Why should the vest on him allure, Which I could not on me endure?
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Those who are esteemed umpires of taste are often persons who have acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, and have an inclination for whatever is elegant; but if you inquire whether they are beautiful souls, and whether their own acts are like fair pictures, you learn that they are selfish and sensual.