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We are the prisoners of ideas.

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
Prisoners
Prisoner
Conflict
Ideas

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What we seek we shall find what we flee from flees from us.
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As Arkwright and Whitney were the demi-gods of cotton, so prolific Time will yet bring an inventor to every plant. There is not a property in nature but a mind is born to seek and find it.
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Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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If it costs ten years, and ten to recover the general prosperity, the destruction of the South is worth so much.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I would study, I would know, I would admire forever.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Housekeeping is not beautiful it cheers and raises neither the husband, the wife, nor the child neither the host nor the guestit oppresses women. A house kept to the end of prudence is laborious without joy a house kept to the end of display is impossible to all but a few women, and their success is dearly bought.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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If we meet no gods, it is because we harbor none. If there is grandeur in you, you will find grandeur in porters and sweeps.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The way of Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake and spider, the snap of the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones of his prey in the coil of the anaconda-these are in the system, and our habits are like theirs.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I do not hesitate to read. all good books in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable-any real insight or broad human sentiment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Tis weak and vicious people who cast the blame on Fate. The right use of Fate is to bring up our conduct to the loftiness of nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The soul is the perceiver and the revealer of truth.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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As sunbeams stream through liberal space And nothing jostle or displace, So waved the pine-tree through my thought And fanned the dreams it never brought.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The best of life is conversation.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Every wall is a door.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Teach me your mood, O patient stars. Who climb each night, the ancient sky. leaving on space no shade, no scars, no trace of age, no fear to die.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Nature is made to conspire with spirit to emancipate us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The wonder is always new that any sane man can be a sailor.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The Good Spirit never cared for the colleges, and though all men and boys were now drilled in Greek, Latin, and Mathematics, it had quite left these shells high on the beach, and was creating and feeding other matters [science] at other ends of the world.
Ralph Waldo Emerson