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Shall we then judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely.

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
Surely
Gay
Judge
Judging
Majority
Pedantry
Pride
Census
Shall
Minority
Country
Minorities

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We do what we must, and call it by the best names.
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When a man does not write his poetry, it escapes by other vents through him.
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We owe to man higher succors than food and fire. We owe to man, man.
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I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called history is.
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Never mind the ridicule, never mind the defeat: up again, old heart!-it seems to say,-there is victory yet for all justice and the true romance which the world exists to realize, will be the transformation of genius into practical power.
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To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
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Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys.
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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
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Who loses a day loses life.
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All public facts are to be individualized, all private facts are to be generalized.
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The days are made on a loom whereof the warp and woof are past and future time. They are majestically dressed, as if every god brought a thread to the skyey web.
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Thought is the seed of action but action is as much its second form as thought is its first. It rises in thought, to the end that it may be uttered and acted. Always in proportion to the depth of its sense does it knock importunately at the gates of the soul, to be spoken, to be done.
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