Quote

Thefts never enrich alms never impoverish murder will speak out of stone walls. The least admixture of a lie-for example, the taint of vanity, the least attempt to make a good impression, a favorable appearance-will instantly vitiate the effect.

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
Least
Appearance
Enrich
Lying
Murder
Theft
Speak
Honesty
Instantly
Thefts
Make
Effect
Walls
Admixture
Good
Stones
Stone
Impoverish
Never
Effects
Vanity
Taint
Wall
Attempt
Alms
Example
Impression
Favorable

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Ethics and religion differ herein that the one is the system of human duties commencing from man the other, from God. Religion includes the personality of God Ethics does not.
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Nature never rhymes her children, nor makes two men alike. When we see a great man, we fancy a resemblance to some historical person, and predict the sequel of his character and fortune, a result which he is sure to disappoint. None will ever solve the problem of his character according to our prejudice, but only in his high unprecedented way.
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Eyes...They speak all languages.
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Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
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This immediate dependence of language upon nature, this conversion of an outward phenomenon into a type of somewhat in human life,never loses its power to affect us. It is this which gives that piquancy to the conversation of a strong-natured farmer or backwoodsman, which all men relish.
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The student is to read history actively and not passively to esteem his own life the text, and books the commentary. Thus compelled, the muse of history will utter oracles as never to those who do not respect themselves.
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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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Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.
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There is a capacity of virtue in us, and there is a capacity of vice to make your blood creep.
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Spurious prudence, making the senses final, is the god of sots and cowards, and is the subject of all comedy. It is nature's joke, and therefore literature's. True prudence limits this sensualism by admitting the knowledge of an internal and real world.
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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.
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We flee away from cities, but we bring The best of cities, these learned classifiers, Men knowing what they seek, armed eyes of experts.
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All persons are puzzles until at last we find in some word or act the key to the man, to the woman straightway all their past words and actions lie in light before us.
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The cheapness of man is every day's tragedy. It is as real a loss that others should be low, as that we should be low for we musthave a society.
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Underneath the inharmonious and trivial particulars, is a musical perfection, the Ideal journeying always with us, the heaven without rent or seam.
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The value of a dollar is to buy just things a dollar goes on increasing in value with all the genius and all the virtue of the world. A dollar in a university is worth more than a dollar in a jail in a temperate, schooled, law-abiding community than in some sink of crime, where dice, knives, and arsenic are in constant play.
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The lord is the peasant that was, The peasant is the lord that shall be.
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He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.
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All necessary truth is its own evidence.
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I think all men know better than they do know that the institutions we so volubly commend are go-carts and baubles but they darenot trust their presentiments.
Ralph Waldo Emerson