Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
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Only the great generalizations survive. The sharp words of the Declaration of Independence, lampooned then and since as 'glittering generalities,' have turned out blazing ubiquities that will burn forever and ever.
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Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.
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His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong.
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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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United States! the ages plead, - Present and Past in under-song, - Go put your creed into your deed, Nor speak with double tongue.
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The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it.
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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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Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.
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The cup of life is not so shallow That we have drained the best That all the wine at once we swallow And lees make all the rest.
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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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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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Nor sequent centuries could hit Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit.
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Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?
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The music that can deepest reach, And cure all ill, is cordial speech.
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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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The young men were born with knives in their brain, a tendency to introversion, self-dissection, anatomizing of motives.
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Poetry teaches the enormous force of a few words, and, in proportion to the inspiration, checks loquacity.
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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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There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact.
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God may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.
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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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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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Nature abhors the old, and old age seems the only disease; all others run into this one.
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Each the herald is who wrote His rank, and quartered his own coat. There is no king nor sovereign state That can fix a hero's rate.