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Poets should be law-givers that is, the boldest lyric inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead the civil code, and the day's work.

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
Civil
Chide
Code
Boldest
Lead
Givers
Poet
Announce
Inspiration
Lyric
Law
Giver
Work
Poets
Insult

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The glory of the farmer is that, in the division of labors, it is his part to create. All trade rests at last on his primitive activity. He stands close to Nature he obtains from the earth the bread and the meat. The food which was not, he causes to be.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Whom God has put asunder, why should man put together?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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So in writing, there is always a right word, and every other than that is wrong. There is no beauty in words except in their collocation. The effect of a fanciful word misplaced, is like that of a horn of exquisite polish growing on a human head.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The attraction and superiority of California are in its days. It has better days & more of them, than any other country.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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No orator can top the one who can give good nicknames.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo.
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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Meek young men grow up in colleges and believe it is their duty to accept the views which books have given, and grow up slaves.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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My life is superficial, takes no root in the deep world I ask, When shall I die, and be relieved of the responsibility of seeinga Universe which I do not use? I wish to exchange this flash-of-lightning faith for continuous daylight, this fever-glow for a benign climate.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Of course, he who has put forth his total strength in fit actions, has the richest return of wisdom.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The dearest events are summer-rain.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The civility of no race can be perfect whilst another race is degraded. It is a doctrine alike of the oldest and of the newest philosophy, that man is one, and that you cannot injure any member, without a sympathetic injury to all the members
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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It is curious that Christianity, which is idealism, is sturdily defended by the brokers, and steadily attacked by the idealists.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Some will always be above others.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The law of nature is alternation for evermore. Each electrical state superinduces the opposite.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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All that can be done for you is nothing to what you can do for yourself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Teach me your mood, O patient stars. Who climb each night, the ancient sky. leaving on space no shade, no scars, no trace of age, no fear to die.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.
Ralph Waldo Emerson