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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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I am primarily engaged to myself to be a public servant of all the gods, to demonstrate to all men that there is intelligence andgood will at the heart of all things, and even higher and yet higher leadings. These are my engagements how can your law further or hinder me in what I shall do to men?
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It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascinationfor all educated Americans.
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The inquiry leads us to that source, at once the essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity or Instinct.
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Far or forgot to me is near Shadow and sunlight are the same The vanished gods to me appear And one to me are shame and fame.They reckon ill who leave me out When me they fly, I am the wings I am the doubter and the doubt, And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.
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I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look,begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary!
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Nature is upheld by antagonism.
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The chief mourner does not always attend the funeral.
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Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.
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You cannot give anything to a magnanimous person. After you have served him, he at once puts you in debt by his magnanimity.
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Cities degrade us by magnifying trifles.
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Is there a difference? Yes. We are in harmony with nature, but never at peace.
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Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear.
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The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.
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Life only avails, not the having lived.
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He that despiseth small things will perish by little and little.
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This very certain that each man carries in his eye the exact indication of his rank in the immense scale of men, and we are always learning to read it. A complete man should need no auxiliaries to his personal presence.
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I have heard with admiring submission the experience of the lady who declared that the sense of being well dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which religion is powerless to bestow.
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An action is the perfection and publication of thought.
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Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations.
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I think the vice of our housekeeping is that it does not hold man sacred. The vice of government, the vice of education, the viceof religion, is one with that of the private life.
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