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The crime which bankrupts men and nations is that of turning aside from one's main purpose to serve a job here and there.
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
Men
Aside
Turning
Main
Serve
Crime
Nations
Purpose
Jobs
More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson
I will not hide my tastes or aversions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions I will seek my own.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The terrible tabulation of the French statists brings every piece of whim and humor to be reducible also to exact numerical ratios. If one man in twenty thousand, or in thirty thousand, eats shoes, or marries his grandmother, then, in every twenty thousand, or thirty thousand, is found one man who eats shoes, or marries his grandmother.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The use of literature is to afford us a platform whence we may command a view of our present life, a purchase by which we may move it....we see literature best from the midst of wild nature, or from the din of affairs, or from a high religion. The field cannot be well seen from within the field.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man is a hero, not because he is braver than anyone else, but because he is brave for 10 minutes longer.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
What is the hardest task in the world? To think.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Bonaparte knew but one merit, and rewarded in one and the same way the good soldier, the good astronomer, the good poet, the good player.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Society does not love its unmaskers.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
It all begins when the soul would have its way with you.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nobody is glad in the gladness of another, and our system is one of war, of an injurious superiority. Every child of the Saxon race is educated to wish to be first. It is our system and a man comes to measure his greatness by the regrets, envies, and hatreds of his competitors.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
It never was in the power of any man or any community to call the arts into being. They come to serve his actual wants, never to please his fancy.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Spartans, stoics, heroes, saints and gods use short and positive speech.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
To be able to discern that what is true is true, and that what is false is false,--this is the mark and character of intelligence.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Though love repine, and reason chafe, There came a voice without reply,- 'Tis man's perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
He that despiseth small things will perish by little and little.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Because the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself, but in every act attempts the production of a new and fairer whole.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nature never rhymes her children, nor makes two men alike. When we see a great man, we fancy a resemblance to some historical person, and predict the sequel of his character and fortune, a result which he is sure to disappoint. None will ever solve the problem of his character according to our prejudice, but only in his high unprecedented way.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
If in the least particular, one could derange the order of nature, who would accept the gift of life?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
