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The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man's.

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
Beauty
Dooms
Natural
Imitator
Else
Inventor
Another
Doom
Music
Mediocrity
Come
Hopeless
Something
Charm
Men
Short

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This very certain that each man carries in his eye the exact indication of his rank in the immense scale of men, and we are always learning to read it. A complete man should need no auxiliaries to his personal presence.
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Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is none.
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The possibility of interpretation lies in the identity of the observer with the observed. Each material thing has its celestial side has its translation, through humanity, into the spiritual and necessary sphere, where it plays a part as indestructible as any other.
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Honor and fortune exist for him who always recognizes the neighborhood of the great, always feels himself in the presence of high causes.
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There is no chance and anarchy in the universe. All is system and gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere.
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In my utter impotence to test the authenticity of the report of my senses, to know whether the impressions they make on me correspond with outlying objects, what difference does it make, whether Orion is up there in heaven, or some god paints the image in the firmament of the soul?
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I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies.
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But genius looks forward: the eyes of men are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates.
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Thought is the property of him who can entertain it, and of him who can adequately place it.
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Do what you know and perception is converted into character.
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The greatest homage to truth is to use it.
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If men would avoid that general language and general manner in which they strive to hide all that is peculiar, and would say only what was uppermost in their own minds, after their own individual manner, every man would be interesting.
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The evolution of a highly destined society must be moral it must run in the grooves of the celestial wheels.
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'Well,' said Red Jacket [to someone complaining that he had not enough time], 'I suppose you have all there is.'
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Every natural action is graceful.
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Wherever there is failure, there is some giddiness, some superstition about luck, some step omitted, which, Nature never pardons.
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The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
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Invention breeds invention.
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When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work , but the solidest thing we know.
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There are men whose language is strong and defying enough, yet their eyes and their actions ask leave of other men to live.
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