Quote

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.

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
Painter
Appointed
Everything
Remains
Bondage
Like
Poet
Tale
Poetry
Princess
Creation
Prose
Fairy
Free
Appropriate
Liberator
Comes
Tales
Liberators
Art

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.
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Go oft to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.
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The world - this shadow of the soul, or other me - lies wide around. Its attractions are the keys which unlock my thoughts and make me acquainted with myself. I run eagerly into this resounding tumult... So much only of life as I know by experience... The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of power.
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Religion is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble.
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The greatest meliorator of the world is selfish, huckstering Trade.
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America means opportunity, freedom, power.
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Why needs a man be rich? Why must he have horses, fine garments, handsome apartments, access to public houses, and places of amusement? Only for want of thought.
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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.
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The pulpit and the press have many commonplaces denouncing the thirst for wealth, but if men should take these moralists at their word, and leave off aiming to be rich, the moralists would rush to rekindle at all hazards this love of power in the people, lest civilization should be undone.
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Our best thoughts come from others.
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Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, Faith looks up
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In analysing history do not be too profound, for often the causes are quite superficial.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to- morrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I find it a great and fatal difference whether I court the Muse, or the Muse courts me. That is the ugly disparity between age and youth.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men - that is genius... Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist... What I must do, is all that concerns me not what the people think... Nothing can bring you peace but yourself nothing, but the triumph of principles.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We do not know today whether we are busy or idle. In times when we thought ourselves indolent, we have afterwards discovered that much was accomplished, and much was begun in us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I like my boy with his endless sweet soliloquies and iterations and his utter inability to conceive why I should not leave all my nonsense, business, and writing and come to tie up his toy horse, as if there was or could be any end to nature beyond his horse. And he is wiser than we when [he] threatens his whole threat I will not love you.
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All the world loves a lover.
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Man is the will, and woman the sentiment. In this ship of humanity, Will is the rudder, and Sentiment the sail when woman affects to steer, the rudder is only a masked sail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson