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An actually existing fly is more important than a possibly existing angel.

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
Important
Existing
Possibly
Angel
Importance
Actually

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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He in whom the love of truth predominates . . . submits to the inconvenience of suspense and imperfect opinion but he is a candidate for truth . . . and respects the highest law of his being.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We resent all criticism which denies us anything that lies in our line of advance.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The learned and the studious of thought have no monopoly of wisdom. Their violence of direction in some degree disqualifies them to think truly.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Of Nature itself upon the soul the sunrise, the haze of autumn, the winter starlight seem interlocutors the prevailing sense is that of an exposition in poetry a high discourse, the voice of the speaker seems to breathe as much from the landscape as from his own breast it is Nature communing with the seer.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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A man is a hero, not because he is braver than anyone else, but because he is brave for 10 minutes longer.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We judge of man's wisdom by his hope.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Man sheds grief as his skin sheds rain.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Luck is just another word for tenacity of purpose.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Painting was called silent poetry and poetry speaking painting.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates. We read the quotation with his eyes, andfind a new and fervent sense as a passage from one of the poets, well recited, borrows new interest from the rendering. As the journals say, the italics are ours.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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He, who loves the bristle of bayonets, only sees in their glitter what beforehand he feels in his hand.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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When the eyes say one thing, and the tongue another, a practiced man relies on the language of the first.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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In our definitions, we grope after the spiritual by describing it as invisible. The true meaning of spiritual is real that law which executes itself, which works without means, and which cannot be conceived as not existing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Not from a vain or shallow thought His awful Jove young Phidias brought.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Science in England, in America, is jealous of theory, hates the name of love and moral purpose. There's revenge for this humanity.What manner of man does science make? The boy is not attracted. He says, I do not wish to be such a kind of man as my professor is.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear.
Ralph Waldo Emerson