Quote

When the vain speaker has sat down, and the people say 'what a good speech,' it still takes an ounce to balance an ounce.

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
Takes
Stills
Ounce
Still
Speaker
Good
Speakers
Thinking
Sat
People
Vain
Speech
Balance

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The secret of success in society is a certain heartiness and sympathy.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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An empire is an immense egotism.
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The university must be retrospective. The gale that gives direction to the vanes on all its towers blows out of antiquity.
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A self-denial, no less austere than the saint's, is demanded of the scholar. He must worship truth, and forgo all things for that,and choose defeat and pain, so that his treasure in thought is thereby augmented.
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Henceforth, please God, forever I forego the yolk of men's opinions. I will be light-hearted as a bird and live with God. I find him in the bottom of my heart, and I hear continually his voice therein.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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If we live truly, we shall see truly. It is as easy for the strong man to be strong, as it is for the weak to be weak.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, 'always do what you are afraid to do.'
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Not gold, but only man can make a people great and strong men who, for truth and honor's sake, stand fast and suffer long.
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When a man thinks happily, he finds no foot-track in the field he traverses. All spontaneous thought is irrespective of all else.
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The method of nature: who could ever analyze it?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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By going one step further back in thought, discordant opinions are reconciled by being seen to be two extremes of one principle, and we can never go so far back as to preclude a still higher vision.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Everything in the universe goes by indirection. There are no straight lines.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Line in Nature is not found Unit and Universe are round.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We begin with friendships, and all our youth is a reconnoitering and recruiting of the holy fraternity they shall combine for thesalvation of men. But so the remoter stars seem a nebula of united light, yet there is no group which a telescope will not resolve and the dearest friends are separated by impassable gulfs.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Everything in nature goes by law, and not by luck.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The quality of the imagination is to flow and not to freeze.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Nature is the symbol of Spirit.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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For each thorn, there's a rosebud... For each twilight - a dawn... For each trial - the strength to carry on, For each storm cloud - a rainbow... For each shadow - the sun... For each parting - sweet memories when sorrow is done.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson