Quote

The student is to read history actively and not passively to esteem his own life the text, and books the commentary. Thus compelled, the muse of history will utter oracles as never to those who do not respect themselves.

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
Never
Esteem
Oracles
Life
Thus
Commentary
Students
Actively
Respect
Utter
Books
Muse
Read
Compelled
History
Text
Book
Student
Passively

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In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking.
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The desire of gold is not for gold. It is not the love of much wheat, and wool and household stuff. It is the means of freedom and benefit.
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The shoemaker makes a good shoe because he makes nothing else.
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But what help from these fineries or pedantries? What help from thought? Life is not dialectics. We, I think, in these times, have had lessons enough of the futility of criticism.
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The soul of God is poured into the world through the thoughts of men.
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A rush of thoughts is the only conceivable prosperity that can come to us.
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In the death of my son, now more than two years ago, I seem to have lost a beautiful estate,--no more. I cannot get it nearer to me.
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The people are to be taken in very small doses.
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There is always room for a person of force and they make room for many.
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Every man who would do anything well, must come to it from a higher ground.
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Every great man is a unique. The Scipionism of Scipio is precisely that part he could not borrow.
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Blessed are those who have no talent!
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Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of the prophets. He saw with an open eye the mystery of the soul. . Alone in all history he estimated the greatness of man.
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There is a crack in everything God has made
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Nothing is quite beautiful alone nothing but is beautiful in the whole. A single object is only so far beautiful as it suggests this universal grace.
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Mankind have such a deep stake in inward illumination, that there is much to be said by the hermit or monk in defence of his life of thought and prayer.
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The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast.
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He in whom the love of repose predominates will accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the first political party he meets — most likely his father's. He gets rest, commodity, and reputation but he shuts the door of truth.
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Examples are cited by soldiers, of men who have seen the cannon pointed, and the fire given to it, and who have stepped aside from he path of the ball. The terrors of the storm are chiefly confined to the parlour and the cabin.
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What you do thunders above your head so loudly, I cannot hear the words you speak.
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