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Books are the best of things, well used abused, among the worst...They are for nothing but to inspire.

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
Books
Used
Best
Wells
Book
Abused
Well
Inspire
Nothing
Among
Things
Worst

More quotes by 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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The reason why all men honor love is because it looks up, and not down aspires and not despairs.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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My life is superficial, takes no root in the deep world I ask, When shall I die, and be relieved of the responsibility of seeinga Universe which I do not use? I wish to exchange this flash-of-lightning faith for continuous daylight, this fever-glow for a benign climate.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Speech is better than silence silence is better than speech.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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What torments of grief you endured, from evils that never arrived
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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When we have arrived at the question, the answer is already near.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men or they are no better than dreams.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Whoever is open, loyal, true of humane and affable demeanour honourable himself, and in his judgement of others faithful to his word as to law, and faithful alike to God and man....such a man is a true gentleman.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The have a good friend is one of the greatest delights of life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We animate what we can see, and we see only what we animate.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The world-spirit is a good swimmer, and storms and waves can not drown him. He snaps his fingers at laws and so, throughout history, heaven seems to affect low and poor means. Through the years and the centuries, through evil agents, through toys and atoms, a great and beneficent tendency irresistibly streams.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Life is in short cycles or periods we are quickly tired, but we have rapid rallies. A man is spent by his work, starved, prostrate he will not lift his hand to save his life he can never think more. He sinks into deep sleep and wakes with renewed youth, with hope, courage, fertile in resources, and keen for daring adventure.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The influence of fine scenery, the presence of mountains, appeases our irritations and elevates our friendships.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The idealism of Berkeley is only a crude statement of the idealism of Jesus, and that again is a crude statement of the fact thatall nature is the rapid efflux of goodness executing and organizing itself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression it is Monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Columbus discovered no isle or key so lonely as himself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I am not much an advocate for traveling, and I observe that men run away to other countries because they are not good in their own, and run back to their own because they pass for nothing in the new places. For the most part, only the light characters travel. Who are you that have no task to keep you at home?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The reverence for the deeds of our ancestors is a treacherous sentiment. Their merit was not to reverence the old, but to honor the present moment and we falsely make them excuses of the very habit which they hated and defied.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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For the resolute and determined, there is time and opportunity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson