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All sensible people are selfish, and nature is tugging at every contract to make the terms of it fair.
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
People
Selfish
Fairs
Fair
Terms
Tugging
Term
Transcendentalism
Nature
Contract
Every
Contracts
Make
Sensible
More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is a property in the horizon which no man has, but he whose eyes can integrate all the parts,--that is, the poet.
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It is easy to carp at colleges, and the college, if he will wait for it, will have its own turn. Genius exists there also, but will not answer a call of a committee of the House of Commons. It is rare, precious, eccentric, and darkling.
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To the body and mind which have been cramped by noxious work or company, nature is medicinal and restores their tone.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins
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With each divine impulse the mind rends the thin rinds of the visible and finite, and comes out into eternity, and inspires and expires its air. It converses with truths that have always been spoken in the world, and becomes conscious of a closer sympathy with Zeno and Arrian, than with persons in the house.
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Discontent is want of self-reliance it is infirmity of will.
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Now that is the wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labor, to hitch his wagon to a star, and see his chore done by the gods themselves. That is the way we are strong, by borrowing the might of the elements. The forces of steam, gravity, galvanism, light, magnets, wind, fire, serve us day by day and cost us nothing.
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The moral equalizes all enriches, empowers all. It is the coin which buys all, and which all find in their pocket. Under the whipof the driver, the slave shall feel his equality with saints and heroes.
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Science was false by being unpoetical. It assumed to explain a reptile or a mollusk, and isolated it-which is hunting for life in graveyards. Reptile or mollusk or man or angel only exists in system, in relation.
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He only is a well-made man who has a good determination. And the end of culture is not to destroy this, God forbid! but to train away all impediment and mixture and leave nothing but pure power.
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Though many painters and sculptors talk glibly of going in for photography, you will find that very few of them can ever make a picture by photography they lack the science, technical knowledge, and above all the practice. Most people think they can play tennis, shoot, write novels, and photograph as well as any other person - until they try
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[D]ivine Providence... keeps the universe open in every direction to the soul.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The world is nothing, the man is all in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason it is for you to know all, it is for you to dare all.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
God enters by a private door into every individual.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
America means opportunity, freedom, power.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The only thing grief has taught me is to know how shallow it is.
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Where do we find ourselves? In a series of which we do not know the extremes, and believe that it has none. We wake and find ourselves on a stair there are stairs below us, which we seem to have ascended there are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward and out of sight.
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All ages of belief have been great all of unbelief have been mean.
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We begin with friendships, and all our youth is a reconnoitering and recruiting of the holy fraternity they shall combine for thesalvation of men. But so the remoter stars seem a nebula of united light, yet there is no group which a telescope will not resolve and the dearest friends are separated by impassable gulfs.
Ralph Waldo Emerson