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Nature has made up her mind that what cannot defend itself shall not be defended.

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
Shall
Nature
Cannot
Made
Mind
Defended
Defend

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The power of a man increases steadily by continuing in one direction.
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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.
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The poorest experience is rich enough for all the purposes of expressing thought
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All ages of belief have been great all of unbelief have been mean.
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The God who made New Hampshire Taunted the lofty land With little men.
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The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible.
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Men achieve a certain greatness unawares when working to another aim.
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An original sentence, a step forward, is worth more than all the censures.
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How silent, how spacious, what room for all, yet without place to insert an atom--in graceful succession, in equal fullness, in balanced beauty, the dance of the hours goes forward still. Like an odor of incense, like a strain of music, like a sleep, it is inexact and boundless. It will not be dissected, nor unraveled, nor shown.
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The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.
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[W]e pity our fathers for dying before steam and galvanism, sulphuric ether and ocean telegraphs, photograph and spectrograph arrived, as cheated out of their human estate.
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Cities force growth and make men talkative and entertaining, but they make them artificial. What possesses interest for us is thenatural of each, his constitutional excellence. This is forever a surprise, engaging and lovely we cannot be satiated with knowing it, and about it and it is this which the conversation with Nature cherishes and guards.
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Society cannot do without cultivated men. As soon as the first wants are satisfied, the higher wants become imperative.
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