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Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.

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
Learning
Stand
Force
Distinctions
Makes
Wit
Character
Distinction
Make
Welcome
Good
Dignity
Levels

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Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?
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There is also something excellent in every audience,--the capacity of virtue. They are ready to be beatified.
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In Haydn's oratorios, the notes present to the imagination not only motions, as, of the snake, the stag, and the elephant, but colors also as the green grass.
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Each man reserves to himself alone the right of being tedious.
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So in accepting the leading of the sentiments, it is not what we believe concerning the immortality of the soul, or the like, but the universal impulse to believe, that is the material circumstance, and is the principal fact in this history of the globe.
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When the vain speaker has sat down, and the people say 'what a good speech,' it still takes an ounce to balance an ounce.
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The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be an honest or well intended halfness a non performance of that which is pretended to be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of performance. The balking of the intellect, is comedy and it announces itself in the pleasant spasms we call laughter.
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The soul answers never by words, but by the thing itself that is inquired after.
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The laws of each are convertible into the laws of any other.
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To educate the wise man, the State exists and with the appearance of the wise man, the State expires. The appearance of charactermakes the state unnecessary. The wise man is the State.
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Very idle is all curiosity concerning other people's estimate of us, and all fear of remaining unknown is not less so.
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All the elements, whose aid man calls in, will sometimes become big masters.
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It is hard to mesmerize ourselves, to whip our own top but through sympathy we are capable of energy and endurance. Concert fires people to a certain fury of performance they can rarely reach alone.
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Conversation in society is found to be on a platform so low as to exclude science, the saint, and the poet.
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The eloquence of one stimulates all the rest, some up to the speaking-point, and all others to a degree that makes them good receivers and conductors, and they avenge themselves for their enforced silence by increased loquacity on their return.
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Only that is poetry which cleanses and mans me.
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Emancipation is the demand of civilization. That is a principle everything else is an intrigue.
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I remember the thought which occurred to me when some ingenious and spiritual foreigners came to America, was, Have you been victimized in being brought hither?--or, prior to that, answer me this, Are you victimizable?
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The moral equalizes all enriches, empowers all. It is the coin which buys all, and which all find in their pocket. Under the whipof the driver, the slave shall feel his equality with saints and heroes.
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As we are, so we do and as we do, so is it done to us we are the builders of our fortunes.
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