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All men plume themselves on the improvement of society, and no man improves.

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
Improves
Improvement
Society
Men
Plume

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Science corrects the old creeds, sweeps away, with every new perception, our infantile catechisms, and necessitates a faith commensurate with the grander orbits and universal laws which it discloses yet it does not surprise the moral sentiment that was older and awaited expectant these larger insights.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called history is.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Nature is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The youth, intoxicated with his admiration of a hero, fails to see, that it is only a projection of his own soul, which he admires.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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If you cannot be free be as free as you can.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, 'Thou must,' The youth whispers, 'I can.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Take egotism out and you would castrate the benefactors.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The religion which is to guide and fulfill the present and coming ages, whatever else it be, must be intellectual. The scientific mind must have a faith which is science.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Thou art to me a delicious torment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I have heard that death takes us away from ill things, not from good. I have heard that when we pronounce the name of man we pronounce the belief of immortality.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Mankind have such a deep stake in inward illumination, that there is much to be said by the hermit or monk in defence of his life of thought and prayer.
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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Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or where it will end.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Underneath the inharmonious and trivial particulars, is a musical perfection, the Ideal journeying always with us, the heaven without rent or seam.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Chiefly the sea-shore has been the point of departure to knowledge, as to commerce. The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Let not the tie be mercenary, though the service is measured in money. Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The secret of drunkenness is, that it insulates us in thought, whilst it unites us in feeling.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Everything has its price - and if that price is not paid, not that thing but something else is obtained... it is impossible to get anything without this price.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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What is life but the angle of vision? A man is measured by the angle at which he looks at objects.
Ralph Waldo Emerson