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My life is for itself and not for a spectacle.

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
Spectacle
Reliance
Life

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There is always room for a man of force and he makes room for many. Society is a troop of thinkers and the best heads among them take the best places.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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If thought makes free, so does the moral sentiment. The mixtures of spiritual chemistry refuse to be analyzed.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Society has really no graver interest than the well-being of the literary class.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Thought makes everything fit for use.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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A friend, therefore, is a sort of paradox in nature. I who alone am, I who see nothing in nature whose existence I can affirm with equal evidence to my own, behold now the semblance of my being, in all its height, variety, and curiosity, reiterated in a foreign form so that a friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Conformity is the ape of harmony.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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This knot of nature is so well tied that nobody was ever cunning enough to find the two ends.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Power is the first good.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Happy is the hearing man unhappy the speaking man.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Any work looks wonderful to me except the one which I can do.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Power is what they want, not candy-power to execute their design, power to give legs and feet, form and actuality to their thought which, to a clear-sighted man, appears the end for which the universe exists, and all its resources might be well applied.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul unbelief in denying them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Perhaps it is the lowest of the qualities of an orator, but it is, on so many occasions, of chief importance,--a certain robust and radiant physical health or--shall I say?--great volumes of animal heat.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Only a biker knows why a dog sticks his head out of a car window.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We are made aware that magnitude of material things is relative, and all objects shrink and expand to serve the passion of the poet. Thus, in his sonnets, the lays of birds, the scents and dyes of flowers, he finds to be the shadow of his beloved time, which keeps her from him, is his chest the suspicion she has awakened, is her ornament
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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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
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Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Test of the poet is knowledge of love, For Eros is older than Saturn or Jove Never was poet, of late or of yore, Who was not tremulous with love-lore.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for greatness, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.
Ralph Waldo Emerson