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Public opinion, I am sorry to say, will bear a great deal of nonsense. There is scarcely any absurdity so gross, whether in religion, politics, science or manners, which it will not bear.

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
Religion
Sorry
Science
Bears
Great
Deal
Scarcely
Deals
Absurdity
Opinion
Gross
Public
Nonsense
Politics
Manners
Whether
Bear

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Character is always known. Thefts never enrich alms never impoverish murder will speak out of stone walls.
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Genius always finds itself a century too early.
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We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse.
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The intellectual man requires a fine bait the sots are easily amused. But everybody is drugged with his own frenzy, and the pageant marches at all hours, with music and banner and badge.
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For splendor, there must somewhere be rigid economy. That the head of the house may go brave, the members must be plainly clad, and the town must save that the State may spend.
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In failing circumstances no one can be relied on to keep their integrity.
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We live by our imagination, our admirations, and our sentiments.
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Every man has a vocation. The talent is the call.
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Many times the reading of a book has made the future of a man.
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Every man is not so much a workman in the world as he is a suggestion of that he should be. Men walk as prophecies of the next age.
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A walk in the woods is only an exalted dream.
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Religionists are clinging to little, positive, verbal, formal versions of the moral law... while the laws of the Law, the great circling truths whose only adequate symbol is the material laws, the astronomy etc. are all unobserved, and sneered at when spoken of.
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Do not tell me of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong
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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.
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A good deal of our politics is physiological.
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Make yourself necessary to the world, and mankind will give you bread.
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We are as much strangers in nature, as we are aliens from God. We do not understand the notes of birds. The fox and the deer run away from us the bear and tiger rend us. We do not know the uses of more than a few plants, as corn and the apple, the potato and the vine. Is not the landscape, every glimpse of which hath a grandeur, a face of him?
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Of lower states, of acts of routine and sense, we can tell somewhat but the masterpieces of God, the total growths and universalmovements of the soul, he hideth they are incalculable. I can know that truth is divine and helpful but how it shall help me I can have no guess, for so to be is the sole inlet of so to know.
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The terrors of the child are quite reasonable, and add to his loveliness for his utter ignorance and weakness, and his enchanting indignation on such a small basis of capital compel every bystander to take his part.
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A person seldom falls sick but the bystanders are animated with a faint hope that he will die.
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