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Whatever is old corrupts, and the past turns to snakes.

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
Past
Corrupts
Snakes
Turns
Whatever
History

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Give me insight into today and you may have the antique and future worlds.
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The difference between talent and genius is in the direction of the current: in genius, it is from within outward in talent from without inward.
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[D]ivine Providence... keeps the universe open in every direction to the soul.
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Yet these uneasy pleasures and fine pains are for curiosity, and not for life.
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Let us unlearn our wisdom of the world. Let us lie low in the Lord's power, and learn that truth alone makes rich and great.
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The longer we live the more we must endure the elementary existence of men and women and every brave heart must treat society asa child, and never allow it to dictate.
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The bulk of mankind believe in two gods. They are under one dominion here in the house, as friend and parent, in social circles, in letters, in art, in love, in religion but in mechanics, in dealing with steam and climate, in trade, in politics, they think they come under another.
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The only prudence in life is concentration.
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History no longer shall be a dull book. It shall walk incarnate in every just and wise man. You shall not tell me by language and titles a catalogue of the volumes you have read. You shall make me feel what periods you have lived.
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Shall we then judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely. 'Tis pedantry to estimate nations by the census, or by square miles of land, or other than by their importance to the mind of the time.
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The house is a castle which the King cannot enter.
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Tis the old secret of the gods that they come in low disguises. 'Tis the vulgar great who come dizened with gold and jewels. Real kings hide away their crowns in their wardrobes, and affect a plain and poor exterior.
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Every man believes that he has greater possibilities.
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It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no person can sincerely try to help another without helping him or herself. Serve and you shall be served. If you love and serve people, you cannot, by any hiding or stratagem, escape the remuneration.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Adult males are what their moms designed them.
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The use of literature is to afford us a platform whence we may command a view of our present life, a purchase by which we may move it....we see literature best from the midst of wild nature, or from the din of affairs, or from a high religion. The field cannot be well seen from within the field.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Lose yourself in nature and find peace
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Among provocatives, the next best thing to good preaching is bad preaching. I have even more thoughts during or enduring it than at other times.
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In a world of infinite choice people are struggling to figure out what to do.
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Be a football to Time and Chance, the more kicks, the better, so that you inspect the whole game and know its utmost law.
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