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The highest proof of civility is that the whole public action of the State is directed on securing the greatest good of the greatest number.
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
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Boston
Massachusetts
R. W. Emerson
Waldo Emerson
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More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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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What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.
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Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to- morrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.
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Cupid is a casuist, a mystic, and a cabalist,-- Can your lurking thought surprise, And interpret your device, . . . . All things wait for and divine him,-- How shall I dare to malign him?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do not craze yourself with thinking, but go about your business anywhere.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wherever a man commits a crime, God finds a witness. Every secret crime has its reporter.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I wish that friendship should have feet, as well as eyes and eloquence. It must plant itself on the ground, before it vaults overthe moon. I wish it to be a little of a citizen, before it is quite a cherub.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The foundation of culture, as of character, is at last the moral sentiment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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.
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Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous or when they are most luxurious-they are conservatives after dinner.
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For the resolute and determined, there is time and opportunity.
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Stand guard at the portal of your mind.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are days when the great are near us, when there is no frown on their brow, no condescension even when they take us by the hand, and we share their thought.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
In the uttermost meaning of the words, thought is devout, and devotion is thought. Deep calls unto deep.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The order of things consents to virtue.
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Many a reformer perishes in his removal of rubbish,--and that makes the offensiveness of the class. They are partial they are notequal to the work they pretend. They lose their way in the assault on the kingdom of darkness, they expend all their energy on some accidental evil, and lose their sanity and power of benefit.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Yankee is one who, if he once gets his teeth set on a thing, all creation can't make him let go.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Meek young men grow up in colleges and believe it is their duty to accept the views which books have given, and grow up slaves.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures it is the finest of fine arts.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
