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Do the thing and you will have the power. But they that do not the thing, had not the power.

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
Power
Thing

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I should as soon think of swimming across Charles River, when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books in originals, when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue.
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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Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is not an apology, but a life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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My son, a perfect little boy of five years and three months, had ended his earthly life. You can never sympathize with me you can never know how much of me such a young child can take away. A few weeks ago I accounted myself a very rich man, and now the poorest of all.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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There is a power in love to divine another's destiny better than that other can, and by heroic encouragements, hold him to his task. What has friendship so signal as its sublime attraction to whatever virtue is in us?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Speak your latent conviction. . . Else tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Love, and you shall be loved.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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As every pool reflects the image of the sun, so every thought and thing restores us an image and creature of the supreme Good. Theuniverse is perforated by a million channels for his activity. All things mount and mount.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We aim above the mark to hit the mark.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Look sharply after your own thoughts. They come unlooked for, like a new bird seen on your trees, and, if you turn to your usual task, disappear and you shall never find that perception again never, I say-but perhaps years, ages, and I know not what events and worlds my lie between you and its return.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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You shall have joy, or you shall have power, said God you shall not have both.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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All stealing is comparative. If you come to absolutes, pray who does not steal.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The good writer seems to be writing about himself, but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself and all things.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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What king has he not taught state, as Talma taught Napoleon? What maiden has not found him finer than her delicacy? What lover has he not outloved? What sage has he not outseen? What gentleman has he not instructed in the rudeness of his behavior?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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As gas-light is found to be the best nocturnal police, so the universe protects itself by pitiless publicity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson