Quote

So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person's genius is confined to a very few hours.

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
Amount
Hours
Retrospect
Persons
Confined
Person
Productivity
Much
Routine
Time
Preparation
Spent
Genius

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The growth of the intellect is spontaneous in every expansion. The mind that grows could not predict the times, the means, the mode of that spontaneity. God enters by a private door into every individual.
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Other world? There is no other world here or nowhere is the whole fact.
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In youth, we clothe ourselves with rainbows, with hope & love, & go as brave as the zodiack. In age we put out another sort of perspiration gout, fever, rheumatism, caprice, doubt, fretting, and avarice.
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A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.
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If with love thy heart has burned If thy love is unreturned Hide thy grief within thy breast, Though it tear thee unexpressed.
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In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.
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We must be courteous to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light.
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Nature may be as selfishly studied as trade. Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology psychology, mesmerism (with intent to show where aour spoons are gone) and anatomy and physiology become phrenology and palmistry.
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I am a willow of the wilderness, Loving the wind that bent me.
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Every man I meet is in some way my superior...
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Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, a possession for all time.
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We do not yet trust the unknown power of thoughts.
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Life itself is ... a sleep within a sleep.
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Though many painters and sculptors talk glibly of going in for photography, you will find that very few of them can ever make a picture by photography they lack the science, technical knowledge, and above all the practice. Most people think they can play tennis, shoot, write novels, and photograph as well as any other person - until they try
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The best bribe which London offers to-day to the imagination, is, that, in such a vast variety of people and conditions, one can believe there is room for persons of romantic character to exist, and that the poet, the mystic, and the hero may hope to confront their counterparts.
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I now require this of all pictures, that they domesticate me, not that they dazzle me. Pictures must not be too picturesque. Nothing astonishes men so much as common-sense and plain dealing. All great actions have been simple, and all great pictures are.
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The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance.
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Health, south wind, books, old trees, a boat, a friend.
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Things bring their own philosophy with them, that is, prudence.
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Only that is poetry which cleanses and mans me.
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