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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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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Age: 78 †
Born: 1803
Born: May 25
Died: 1882
Died: April 27
Biographer
Diarist
Essayist
Philosopher
Poet
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Boston
Massachusetts
R. W. Emerson
Waldo Emerson
Action
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Men
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More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Self-love is, in almost all men, such an over-weight that they are incredulous of a man's habitual preference of the general good to his own but when they see it proved by sacrifices of ease, wealth, rank, and of life itself, there is no limit to their admiration.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Science was false by being unpoetical. It assumed to explain a reptile or a mollusk, and isolated it-which is hunting for life in graveyards. Reptile or mollusk or man or angel only exists in system, in relation.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
But it is a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy something, which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith's.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Lawyers are a prudent race though not very fond of liberty.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. (Despite) all the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether... The effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a certain cordial exhilaration.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man's.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our expense is almost all for conformity. It is for cake that we run in debt 'tis not the intellect, not the heart, not beauty, not worship, that costs so much.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A song is no song unless the circumstance is free and fine. If a singer sing from a sense of duty or from seeing no way to escape,I had rather have none. Those only can sleep who do not care to sleep and those only write or speak best who do not too much respect the writing or the speaking.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The picture waits for my verdict it is not to command me, but I am to settle its claim to praise.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is one mind common to all individual men
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The charm of fine manners is music and sculpture and picture to many who do not pretend to appreciation of these arts.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fractures well cured make us more strong.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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
I think all men know better than they do know that the institutions we so volubly commend are go-carts and baubles but they darenot trust their presentiments.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The vanishing, volatile froth of the present which any shadow will alter, any thought blow away, any event annihilate, is every moment converted into the adamantine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Shall we then judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is the fine souls who serve us, and not what is called fine society. Fine society is only a self-protection against the vulgarities of the street and the tavern.
Ralph Waldo Emerson