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Take egotism out and you would castrate the benefactors.

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
Castrate
Benefactors
Egotism
Relationship
Take
Would

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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And in cases where profound conviction has been wrought, the eloquent man is he who is no beautiful speaker, but who is inwardly drunk with a certain belief. It agitates and tears him, and perhaps almost bereaves him of the power of articulation.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We might as easily reprove the east wind, or the frost, as a political party, whose members, for the most part, could give no account of their position, but stand for the defence of those interests in which they find themselves.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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As the farmer casts into the ground the finest ears of his grain, the time will come when we too shall hold nothing back, but shall eagerly convert more than we now possess into means and powers, when we shall be willing to sow the sun and the moon for seeds.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The primary wisdom is intuition.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We live by our imagination, our admirations, and our sentiments.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Some will always be above others. Destroy the inequality today, and it will appear again tomorrow.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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What matters most is not what is behind us or before us, but what is within us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Yet these uneasy pleasures and fine pains are for curiosity, and not for life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Tis the good reader that makes the good book in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakenly meant for his ear the profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader the profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until it is discovered by an equal mind and heart.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Every word which is used to express a moral or intellectual fact, if traced to its root, is found to be borrowed from some material appearance.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Self-love is, in almost all men, such an over-weight that they are incredulous of a man's habitual preference of the general good to his own but when they see it proved by sacrifices of ease, wealth, rank, and of life itself, there is no limit to their admiration.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Thoughts come into our minds by avenues which we never left open, and thoughts go out of our minds through avenues which we never voluntarily opened.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The nobler the truth or sentiment, the less imports the question of authorship.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The machine unmakes the man. Now that the machine is so perfect, the engineer is nobody.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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That which builds is better than that which is built.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We, as we read, must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner must fasten these images to some reality in our secret experience, or we shall learn nothing rightly.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men - that is genius... Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist... What I must do, is all that concerns me not what the people think... Nothing can bring you peace but yourself nothing, but the triumph of principles.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Is not prayer a study of truth, a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite? No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The German intellect wants the French sprightliness, the fine practical understanding of the English, and the American adventure but it has a certain probity, which never rests in a superficial performance, but asks steadily, To what end? A German public asks for a controlling sincerity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is all. Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and soldier.
Ralph Waldo Emerson