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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
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Boston
Massachusetts
R. W. Emerson
Waldo Emerson
Principle
Number
Value
Numbers
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Things
Explain
More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The man for whom the law exists - the man of forms, the conservative - is a tame man.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The whole of what we know is a system of compensation. Every defect in one manner is made up in another. Every suffering is rewarded every sacrifice is made up every debt is paid.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Ralph Waldo Emerson
In the Fiji islands, it appears, cannibalism is now familiar. They eat thier own wives and children. We only devour widows' houses, and great merchants outwit and absorb the substance of small ones, and every man feeds on his neighbor's labor if he can. It is a milder form of cannibalism.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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 greatness, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Some men, at the approach of a dispute, neigh like horses.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Spurious prudence, making the senses final, is the god of sots and cowards, and is the subject of all comedy. It is nature's joke, and therefore literature's. True prudence limits this sensualism by admitting the knowledge of an internal and real world.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The universe is the externalization of the soul.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The borrower runs in his own debt.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. We quote not only books and proverbs, but arts, sciences, religion, customs, and laws nay, we quote temples and houses, tables and chairs, by imitation.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man must thank his defects, and stand in some terror of his talents. A transcendent talent draws so largely on his forces as tolame him a defect pays him revenues on the other side.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Pride ruined the angels, Their shame them restores And the joy that is sweetest Lurks in stings of remorse.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The beautiful laws of time and space, once dislocated by our inaptitude, are holes and dens. If the hive be disturbed by rash and stupid hands, instead of honey, it will yield us bees.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Riding a horse is not a gentle hobby, to be picked up and laid down like a game of solitaire. It is a grand passion. It seizes a person whole and once it has done so, he/she will have to accept that his life will be radically changed.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope that here, at least, we shall find reality, sharp peaks and edges of truth. But it turns out to be scene-painting and counterfeit. The only thing grief has taught me is to know how shallow it is.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The aspect of nature is devout. Like the figure of Jesus, she stands with bended head, and hands folded upon the breast. The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We prize books, and they prize them most who are themselves wise.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
But a public oration is an escapade, a non-committal, an apology, a gag, and not a communication, not a speech, not a man.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Great men exist that there might be greater men.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
