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Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?

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
Religion
History
Thinking
Revelation
Revelations
Insight
Tradition
Poetry
Philosophy

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It is bad enough that our geniuses cannot do anything useful, but it is worse that no man is fit for society who has fine traits.He is admired at a distance, but he cannot come near without appearing a cripple.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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People are very inclined to set moral standards for others.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The efforts which we make to escape from our destiny only serve to lead us into it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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So in accepting the leading of the sentiments, it is not what we believe concerning the immortality of the soul, or the like, but the universal impulse to believe, that is the material circumstance, and is the principal fact in this history of the globe.
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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Experience is the only teacher, and we get his lesson indifferently in any school.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Do your work, but do your thing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Every man is eloquent once in his life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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An original sentence, a step forward, is worth more than all the censures.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Every man has a choice between love of truth and love of repose. Love of repose brings him a solid reputation and peaceful life love of truth keeps him in suspense. A man who loves truth respects the highest law of his being.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The goitre of egotism is so frequent among notable persons, that we must infer some strong necessity in nature which it subservessuch as we see in the sexual attraction.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The statue is then beautiful when it begins to be incomprehensible, when it is passing out of criticism, and can no longer be defined by compass and measuring-wand, but demands an active imagination to go with it, and to say what it is in the act of doing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The finished man of the world must eat of every apple once.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Blessed are those who have no talent!
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We must be our own before we can be another's.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The land is the appointed remedy for whatever is false and fantastic in our culture. The continent we inhabit is to be physic andfood for our mind, as well as our body. The land, with its tranquilizing, sanative influences, is to repair the errors of a scholastic and traditional education, and bring us to just relations with men and things.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We are made aware that magnitude of material things is relative, and all objects shrink and expand to serve the passion of the poet. Thus, in his sonnets, the lays of birds, the scents and dyes of flowers, he finds to be the shadow of his beloved time, which keeps her from him, is his chest the suspicion she has awakened, is her ornament
Ralph Waldo Emerson