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The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain.

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
Writer
Boston
Massachusetts
R. W. Emerson
Waldo Emerson
Things
Explain
Principle
Number
Value
Numbers
Principles
Values

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America is a country of young men.
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To clothe the fiery thought In simple words succeeds, For still the craft of genius is To mask a king in weeds.
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Many a profound genius, I suppose, who fills the world with fame of his exploding renowned errors, is yet everyday posed and baffled by trivial questions at his own supper table.
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The last change in our point of view gives the whole world a pictorial air.
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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.
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Tis a short sight to limit our faith in laws to those of gravity, of chemistry, of botany, and so forth.
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Many photographers think they are photographing nature when they are only caricaturing her.
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Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Test of the poet is knowledge of love, For Eros is older than Saturn or Jove Never was poet, of late or of yore, Who was not tremulous with love-lore.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Every body we know surrounds himself with a fine house, fine books, conservatory, gardens, equipage, and all manner of toys, as screens to interpose between himself and his guest. Does it not seem as if man was of a very sly, elusive nature, and dreaded nothing so much as a full rencontre front to front with his fellow?
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The counting-room maxims liberally expounded are laws of the Universe. The merchant's economy is a coarse symbol of the soul's economy. It is, to spend for power, and not for pleasure.
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The writer is an explorer. Every step is an advance into a new land.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Pines a thousand years old. Every year they must go farther for them: they recede, like beavers and Indians, before the white man.
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Perhaps it is the lowest of the qualities of an orator, but it is, on so many occasions, of chief importance,--a certain robust and radiant physical health or--shall I say?--great volumes of animal heat.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The highest compact we can make with our fellow is - Let there be truth between us two forevermore.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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A man is a god in ruins.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Why should we be cowed by the name of Action?.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Some thoughts always find us young, and keep us so. Such a thought is the love of the universal and eternal beauty.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Knowledge is the antidote to fear,- Knowledge, Use and Reason, with its higher aids.
Ralph Waldo Emerson