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Life only avails, not the having lived.

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
Lived
Life
Avails
Inspire

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We over-estimate the conscience of our friend. His goodness seems better than our goodness, his nature finer, his temptations less. Everything that is his,--his name, his form, his dress, books, and instruments,--fancy enhances. Our own thought sounds new and larger from his mouth.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is like a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue. . . .
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Love not the flower they pluck and know it not, And all their botany is Latin names.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The reason why all men honor love is because it looks up, and not down aspires and not despairs.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We do not count a man's years until he has nothing else to count.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Of all debts, men are least willing to pay their taxes what a satire this is on government.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Life is a boundless privilege, and when you pay for your ticket, and get into the car, you have no guess what good company you shall find there.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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What king has he not taught state, as Talma taught Napoleon? What maiden has not found him finer than her delicacy? What lover has he not outloved? What sage has he not outseen? What gentleman has he not instructed in the rudeness of his behavior?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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There are dull and bright, sacred and profane, coarse and fine egotists. It is a disease that, like influenza, falls on all constitutions. In the distemper known to physicians as chorea, the patient sometimes turns round, and continues to spin slowly in one spot. Is egotism a metaphysical varioloid of this malady?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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What's a book? Everything or nothing. The eye that sees it all.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment. The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Insist on yourself. Never imitate.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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One thing is forever good That one thing is Success.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The true poem is the poet's mind.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We don't grow old. When we cease to grow, we become old.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Wild liberty develops iron conscience. Want of liberty, by strengthening law and decorum, stupefies conscience.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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In analysing history do not be too profound, for often the causes are quite superficial.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Everything that is popular, it has been said, deserves the attention of philosophers: and this is for the obvious reason, that although it may not be of any worth in itself, yet it characterizes the people.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Every advantage has its tax.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Go face the fire at sea, or the cholera in your friend's house, or the burglar in your own, or what danger lies in the way of duty, knowing you are guarded by the cherubim of Destiny. If you believe in Fate to your harm, believe it, at least, for your good.
Ralph Waldo Emerson