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That man is idle who can do something better.

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
Something
Men
Idleness
Laziness
Idle
Better

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The wonder is always new that any sane man can be a sailor.
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All stealing is comparative. If you come to absolutes, pray who does not steal.
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Hidden away in the inner nature of the real man is the law of his life, and someday he will discover it and consciously make use of it. He will heal himself, make himself happy and prosperous, and life in an entirely different world. For he will have discovered that life is from within and not from without.
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A walk in the woods is only an exalted dream.
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It is commonly said by farmers, that a good pear or apple costs no more time or pains to rear, than a poor one so I would have no work of art, no speech, or action, or thought, or friend, but the best.
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A man is the whole encyclopedia of facts. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie folded already in the first man.
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And last of all, high over thought, in the world of morals, Fate appears as vindicator, levelling the high, lifting the low, requiring justice in man, and always striking soon or late when justice is not done. What is useful will last, what is hurtful will sink.
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You shall have joy, or you shall have power, said God you shall not have both.
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An eye can threaten like a loaded and levelled gun, or it can insult like hissing or kicking or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart dance for joy. ... One of the most wonderful things in nature is a glance of the eye it transcends speech it is the bodily symbol of identity.
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Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks he is free.
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The word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression it is Monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain.
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Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
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A man is a golden impossibility. The line he must walk is a hair's breadth. The wise through excess of wisdom is made a fool.
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Solvency is maintained by means of a national debt, on the principle, If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?
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There can be no excess to love, none to knowledge, none to beauty.
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My evening visitors, if they cannot see the clock should find the time in my face.
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Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.
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There is a crack in everything God has made
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When we have broken our god of tradition, and ceased from our god of rhetoric, then may God fire the heart with His presence.
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Very few of our race can be said to be yet finished men. We still carry sticking to us some remains of the preceding inferior quadruped organization. We call these millions men but they are not yet men. Half-engaged in the soil, pawing to get free, man needs all the music that can be brought to disengage him.
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