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I consider theology to be the rhetoric of morals.

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
Moral
Morals
Rhetoric
Theology
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Never read any book that is not a year old.
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Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.
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We denote this primary wisdom as Intuition, whilst all later teachings are tuitions.
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We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected.
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Take egotism out and you would castrate the benefactors.
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All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration out there in history we can see its fatal strength.
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As men get on in life, they acquire a love for sincerity, and somewhat less solicitude to be lulled or amused. In the progress ofthe character, there is an increasing faith in the moral sentiment, and a decreasing faith in propositions.
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Therefore is nature ever the ally of Religion: lends her all her pomp and riches to the religious sentiment.
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Of the Shaker society, it was formerly a sort of proverb in the country, that they always sent the devil to market.
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From Washington, proverbially the city of distances, through all its cities, states, and territories, it is a country of beginnings, of projects, of designs, and expectations.
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Society always consists, in greatest part, of young and foolish persons. The old, who have seen through the hypocrisy of the courts and statesmen, die, and leave no wisdom to their sons. They believe their own newspaper, as their fathers did at their age.
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Everything that is popular, it has been said, deserves the attention of philosophers: and this is for the obvious reason, that although it may not be of any worth in itself, yet it characterizes the people.
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Skepticism? Yes, but a saint is a skeptic once in twenty-four hours.
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Every man's nature is a sufficient advertisement to him of the character of his fellows.
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The shows of the day, the dewy morning, the rainbow, mountains, orchards in blossom, stars, moonlight, shadows in still water, andthe like, if too eagerly hunted, become shows merely, and mock us with their unreality.
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In failing circumstances no one can be relied on to keep their integrity.
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Life is a series of surprises and would not be worth taking or keeping if it were not.
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The world is young: the former great men call to us affectionately. We too must write Bibles, to unite again the heavens and the earthly world.
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In these divine pleasures permitted to me of walks in the June night under moon and stars, I can put my life as a fact before me and stand aloof from its honor and shame.
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We are the prisoners of ideas. They catch us up for moments into their heaven, and so fully engage us, that we take no thought forthe morrow, gaze like children, without an effort to make them our own.
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