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There is a time when a man distinguishes the idea of felicity from the idea of wealth it is the beginning of wisdom.

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
Felicity
Beginning
Wealth
Wisdom
Idea
Ideas
Men
Time
Distinguishes

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Duty grows everywhere--like children, like grass.
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Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or where it will end.
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I remember the thought which occurred to me when some ingenious and spiritual foreigners came to America, was, Have you been victimized in being brought hither?--or, prior to that, answer me this, Are you victimizable?
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After you have pumped your brains for thoughts and verses, there is a better poetry hinted in whistling a tune on your walk.
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A good deal of our politics is physiological.
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The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.
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There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.
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A gentleman makes no noise a lady is serene.
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The universal soul is the alone creator of the useful and the beautiful therefore to make anything useful or beautiful, the individual must be submitted to the universal mind.
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The simplest words,--we do not know what they mean except when we love and aspire.
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This immediate dependence of language upon nature, this conversion of an outward phenomenon into a type of somewhat in human life,never loses its power to affect us. It is this which gives that piquancy to the conversation of a strong-natured farmer or backwoodsman, which all men relish.
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It is commonly said by farmers, that a good pear or apple costs no more time or pains to rear, than a poor one so I would have no work of art, no speech, or action, or thought, or friend, but the best.
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Necessity does everything well. In our condition of universal dependence, it seems heroic to let the petitioner be the judge of his necessity, and to give all that is asked, though at great inconvenience.
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I should as soon think of swimming across Charles River, when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books in originals, when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue.
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Congratulate yourself if you have done something strange, extravagant and broken the monotony.
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The eye is the painter and the ear the singer.
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We must set up a strong present tense against all rumors of wrath, past and to come.
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The moral sense is always supported by the permanent interest of the parties. Else, I know not how, in our world, any good would ever get done.
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Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is not an apology, but a life.
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Knowledge is the only elegance.
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