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Men are lenses through which we read our own minds.

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
Mind
Men
Lenses
Minds
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More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If the East loves infinity, the West delights in boundaries.
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Skepticism is slow suicide.
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Europe has always owed to oriental genius its divine impulses. What these holy bards said, all sane men found agreeable and true.
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He is great who confers the most benefits.
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Let a man then know his worth and keep things under his feet.
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No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.
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And, in fine, the ancient precept, Know thyself, and the modern precept, Study nature, become at last one maxim.
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A life in harmony with nature, the love of truth and virtue, will purge the eyes to understanding her text.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Colleges, in like manner, have their indispensable office,--to teach elements. But they can only highly serve us, when they aim not to drill, but to create when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and, by the concentrated fires, set the hearts of their youth on flame.
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There is a principle which is the basis of things, which all speech aims to say, and all action to evolve, a simple, quiet, undescribed, undescribable presence, dwelling very peacefully in us, our rightful lord: we are not to do, but to let do not to work, but to be worked upon.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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When a dog is chasing after you, whistle for him.
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Not a ray is dimmed, not an atom worn nature's oldest force is as good as new.
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We are reformers in the spring and summer, but in autumn we stand by the old. Reformers in the morning, and conservers at night.
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Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdom which cannot help itself.
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In spite of warnings, change rarely occurs until the status quo becomes more painful than change. People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.
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I cannot find language of sufficient energy to convey my sense of the sacredness of private integrity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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When all shoot at one mark, the gods join in the combat.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind, and that state of the mind can only be described by presenting that natural appearance as its picture.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Heaven often protects valuable souls charged with great secrets, great ideas, by long shutting them up with their own thoughts.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide. Every influx of atheism, of skepticism, is thus made useful as a mercury pill assaulting and removing a diseased religion, and making way for truth.
Ralph Waldo Emerson