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A man's personal defects will commonly have with the rest of the world precisely that importance which they have to himself. If he makes light of them, so will other men.
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
Rest
Makes
Light
Commonly
Men
Defects
World
Precisely
Faults
Importance
Personal
More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson
An English family consists of a few persons, who, from youth to age, are found revolving within a few feet of each other, as if tied by some invisible ligature, tense as that cartilage which we have seen attaching the two Siamese.
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No performance is worth loss of geniality. 'Tis a cruel price we pay for certain fancy goods called fine arts and philosophy.
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The right eloquence needs no bell to call the people together, and no constable to keep them.
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Manners have been somewhat cynically defined to be a contrivance of wise men to keep fools at a distance. Fashion is shrewd to detect those who do not belong to her train, and seldom wastes her attentions. Society is very swift in its instincts, and if you do not belong to it, resists and sneers at you, or quietly drops you.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Washington, where an insignificant individual may trespass on a nation's time.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
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The greatest genius is the most indebted person.
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The desire of gold is not for gold. It is not the love of much wheat, and wool and household stuff. It is the means of freedom and benefit.
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And what is Genius but finer love, a love impersonal, a love of the flower and perfection of things, and a desire to draw a new picture or copy of the same? It looks to the cause and life: it proceeds from within outward, whilst Talent goes from without inward.
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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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Self-command is the main elegance.
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How cunningly nature hides every wrinkle of her inconceivable antiquity under roses and violets and morning dew!
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Tis a short sight to limit our faith in laws to those of gravity, of chemistry, of botany, and so forth.
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Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Children and savages use only nouns or names of things, which they convert into verbs, and apply to analogous mental acts.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man is a golden impossibility. The line he must walk is a hair's breadth. The wise through excess of wisdom is made a fool.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man must keep an eye on his servants, if he would not have them rule him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Tis the old secret of the gods that they come in low disguises. 'Tis the vulgar great who come dizened with gold and jewels. Real kings hide away their crowns in their wardrobes, and affect a plain and poor exterior.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
And truly it demands something godlike in him who cast off the common motives of humanity and ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster.
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