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In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends, but they are imprisoned by an enchanter in these paper and leathern boxes.

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
Hundreds
Boxes
Library
Dear
Paper
Enchanter
Reading
Imprisoned
Friends
Literacy
Many
Surrounded

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Observe how every truth and every error, each a thought of someone's mind, clothes itself with societies, houses, cities, language, ceremonies, newspapers
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The near explains the far. The drop is a small ocean. A man is related to all nature. This perception of the worth of the vulgar is fruitful in discoveries. Goethe, in this very thing the most modern of the moderns, has shown us, as none ever did, the genius of the ancients.
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That which we do not call education is more precious than that which we call so.
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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.
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Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?
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The only thing that can grow is the thing you give energy to.
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Everything in creation has its appointed painter or poet and remains in bondage like the princess in the fairy tale 'til its appropriate liberator comes to set it free.
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Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom.
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A man must consider what a blindman's-buff is this game of conformity.
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The way to write is to throw your body at the mark when your arrows are spent.
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Do what you're afraid to do.
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People only see what they are prepared to see. If you look for what is good and what you can be grateful for you will find it everywhere.
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Science is nothing but the finding of analogy, identity, in the most remote parts.
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There is one topic peremptorily forbidden to all well-bred, to all rational mortals, namely, their distempers. If you have not slept or if you have slept or if you have head ache or sciatica or leprosy or thunder-stroke, I beseech you, by all angels, to hold your peace and not pollute the morning.
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The masters painted for joy, and knew not that virtue had gone out of them. They could not paint the like in cold blood. The masters of English lyric wrote their songs so. It was a fine efflorescence of fine powers.
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The influence of fine scenery, the presence of mountains, appeases our irritations and elevates our friendships.
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Every day, the sun and, after sunset, night and her stars. Ever the winds blow ever the grass grows. Every day, men and women, conversing, beholding and beholden. The scholar is he of all men whom this spectacle most engages. He must settle its value in his mind. What is nature to him?
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There are days when the great are near us, when there is no frown on their brow, no condescension even when they take us by the hand, and we share their thought.
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Life is an ecstasy. Life is sweet as nitrous oxide.
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I have no hostility to nature, but a child's love to it. I expand and live in the warm day like corn and melons.
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