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But genius looks forward: the eyes of men are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates.

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
Genius
Eyes
Eye
Looks
Forehead
Men
Foreheads
Hopes
Creates
Forward

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Doing well is a result of doing good.
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Begin and proceed on a settled conviction that but little is permitted to any man to do or to know, and if he complies with the first grand laws, he shall do well.
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The evolution of a highly destined society must be moral it must run in the grooves of the celestial wheels.
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Let a man then know his worth and keep things under his feet.
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You cannot institute, without peril of charlatanism.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The dice of God are always loaded.
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Nothing is arbitrary, nothing is insulated in beauty. It depends forever on the necessary and the useful. The plumage of the bird, the mimic plumage of the insect, has a reason for its rich colors in the constitution of the animal. Fitness is so inseparable an accompaniment of beauty, that it, has been taken for it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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A man's personal defects will commonly have with the rest of the world precisely that importance which they have to himself. If he makes light of them, so will other men.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Now that is the wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labor, to hitch his wagon to a star, and see his chore done by the gods themselves. That is the way we are strong, by borrowing the might of the elements. The forces of steam, gravity, galvanism, light, magnets, wind, fire, serve us day by day and cost us nothing.
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Many of the historical proverbs have a doubtful paternity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The motive of science was the extension of man, on all sides, into Nature, till his hands should touch the stars, his eyes see through the earth, his ears understand the language of beast and bird, and the sense of the wind and, through his sympathy, heaven and earth should talk with him. But that is not our science.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Man is a shrewd inventor, and is ever taking the hint of a new machine from his own structure, adapting some secret of his own anatomy in iron, wood, and leather, to some required function in the work of the world.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Although this garrulity of advising is born with us, I confess that life is rather a subject of wonder, than of didactics. So muchfate, so much irresistible dictation from temperament and unknown inspiration enter into it, that we doubt we can say anything out of our own experience whereby to help each other.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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A man makes inferiors his superiors by heat self-control is the rule.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We owe to man higher succors than food and fire. We owe to man, man.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Live in the sunshine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We can only obey our own polarity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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A state of war or anarchy, in which law has little force, is so far valuable, that it puts every man on trial. The man of principle is known as such, and even in the fury of faction is respected.
Ralph Waldo Emerson