Quote

So in writing, there is always a right word, and every other than that is wrong. There is no beauty in words except in their collocation. The effect of a fanciful word misplaced, is like that of a horn of exquisite polish growing on a human head.

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
Like
Wrong
Polish
Words
Effect
Human
Except
Humans
Effects
Fanciful
Right
Head
Misplaced
Writing
Growing
Horn
Every
Beauty
Horns
Always
Word
Exquisite

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Every man is grave alone.
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What is the end of human life? It is not, believe me, the chief end of man that he should make a fortune and beget children whose end is likewise to make a fortune, but it is, in few words, that he should explore himself.
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Riding a horse is not a gentle hobby, to be picked up and laid down like a game of solitaire. It is a grand passion. It seizes a person whole and once it has done so, he/she will have to accept that his life will be radically changed.
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I always seem to suffer some loss of faith on entering cities.
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Your work should be in praise of what you love.
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He who would be a man must therefore be a non-conformist.
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There is a time when a man distinguishes the idea of felicity from the idea of wealth it is the beginning of wisdom.
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The French woman says, 'I am a woman and a Parisienne, and nothing foreign to me appears altogether human.'
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Read proudly--put the duty of being read invariably on the author. If he is not read, whose fault is it? I am quite ready to be charmed, but I shall not make-believe I am charmed.
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Eloquence is the appropriate organ of the highest personal energy.
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If you believe in the soul, do not clutch at sensual sweetness before it is ripe on the slow tree of cause and effect.
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Nothing is beneath you if it is in the direction of your life.
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Good writing is a kind of skating which carries off the performer where he would not go.
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For what are they all in their high conceit, When man in the bush with God may meet?
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And last of all, high over thought, in the world of morals, Fate appears as vindicator, levelling the high, lifting the low, requiring justice in man, and always striking soon or late when justice is not done. What is useful will last, what is hurtful will sink.
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True friends are two people who are comfortable sharing silence together.
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I can believe a miracle because I can raise my own arm. I can believe a miracle because I can remember. I can believe it because I can speak and be understood by you.
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Although this garrulity of advising is born with us, I confess that life is rather a subject of wonder, than of didactics. So muchfate, so much irresistible dictation from temperament and unknown inspiration enter into it, that we doubt we can say anything out of our own experience whereby to help each other.
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The man in the street does not know a star in the sky.
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