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Everything in the universe goes by indirection. There are no straight lines.

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
Lines
Universe
Everything
Indirection
Positivity
Straight
Positive
Goes

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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To help the young soul, to add energy, inspire hope, and blow the coals into a useful flame to redeem defeat by new thought and firm action, this, though not easy, is the work of divine men.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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When its errands are noble and adequate, a steamboat bridging the Atlantic between Old and New England, and arriving at its ports with the punctuality of a planet, is a step of man into harmony with nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Extremes meet, and there is no better example than the naughtiness of humility.
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Tis curious that we only believe as deeply as we live.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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In the Greek cities, it was reckoned profane, that any person should pretend a property in a work of art, which belonged to all who could behold it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The art of conversation, or the qualification for a good companion, is a certain self-control, which now holds the subject, now lets it go, with a respect for the emergencies of the moment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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A man's personal defects will commonly have with the rest of the world precisely that importance which they have to himself. If he makes light of them, so will other men.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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A human being should beware how he laughs, for then he shows all his faults.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The vulgar call good fortune that which really is produced by the calculations of genius.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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There is nothing but is related to us, nothing that does not interest us,--kingdom, college, tree, horse, or iron show,--the rootsof all things are in man.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Thought is the property of him who can entertain it, and of him who can adequately place it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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When a thought of Plato becomes a thought to me,--when a truth that fired the soul of Pindar fires mine, time is no more. When I feel that we two meet in a perception, that our two souls are tinged with the same hue, and do as it were run into one, why should I measure degrees of latitude, why should I count Egyptian years?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Man is a piece of the universe made alive
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is none.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We want men and women who shall renovate life and our social state but we see that most natures are insolvent, cannot satisfy their own wants, have an ambition out of all proportion to their practical force, and so do lean and beg day and night continually.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Nature and literature are subjective phenomena every evil and every good thing is a shadow which we cast
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The primary wisdom is intuition.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Therefore is nature ever the ally of Religion: lends her all her pomp and riches to the religious sentiment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Character teaches above our wills.
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