Quote

That which we call character is a reserved force which acts directly by presence, and without means. It is conceived of as a certain undemonstrable force, a familiar or genius, by whose impulses the man is guided, but whose counsels he cannot impart.

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
Force
Directly
Means
Impulse
Cannot
Acts
Counsels
Certain
Familiar
Impulses
Character
Presence
Impart
Without
Whose
Conceived
Mean
Genius
Guided
Men
Call
Reserved

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The best bribe which London offers to-day to the imagination, is, that, in such a vast variety of people and conditions, one can believe there is room for persons of romantic character to exist, and that the poet, the mystic, and the hero may hope to confront their counterparts.
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The intellectual man requires a fine bait the sots are easily amused. But everybody is drugged with his own frenzy, and the pageant marches at all hours, with music and banner and badge.
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I like my boy with his endless sweet soliloquies and iterations and his utter inability to conceive why I should not leave all my nonsense, business, and writing and come to tie up his toy horse, as if there was or could be any end to nature beyond his horse. And he is wiser than we when [he] threatens his whole threat I will not love you.
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The cheapness of man is every day's tragedy.
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People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
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My doom and my strength is to be solitary.
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Why has my motley diary no jokes? Because it is a soliloquy and every man is grave alone.
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The characteristic of genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic.
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It is the quality of the moment, not the number of days, or events, or of actors, that imports.
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Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown, Of thee, from the hill-top looking down And the heifer, that lows in the upland farm, Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm The sexton tolling the bell at noon, Dreams not that great Napoleon Sto
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There is genius as well in virtue as in intellect. 'Tis the doctrine of faith over works.
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Words are finite organs of the infinite mind. They cannot cover the dimensions of what is in truth. They break, chop, and impoverish it.
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Consideration is the soil in which wisdom may be expected to grow, and strength be given to every up-springing plant of duty.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Society, to be sure, does not like this very well it saith, Whoso goes to walk alone, accuses the whole world he declares all to be unfit to be his companions it is very uncivil, nay, insulting Society will retaliate.
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The mind does not create what it perceives, any more than the eye creates the rose.
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We fill the hands and nurseries of our children with all manner of dolls, drums and horses, withdrawing their eyes from the plain face and... Nature, the sun and moon, the animals, the water and stones, which should be their toys.
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We over-estimate the conscience of our friend. His goodness seems better than our goodness, his nature finer, his temptations less. Everything that is his,--his name, his form, his dress, books, and instruments,--fancy enhances. Our own thought sounds new and larger from his mouth.
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We find in life exactly what we put into it
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Flowers are the earth laughing.
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Life loiters at the book's first page,-- Ah! could we turn the leaf.
Ralph Waldo Emerson