Quote

Who gave thee, O Beauty, The keys of this breast,-- Too credulous lover Of blest and unblest? Say, when in lapsed ages Thee knew I of old? Or what was the service For which I was sold?

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
Thee
Lapsed
Lovers
Credulous
Service
Blest
Keys
Breast
Gave
Sold
Knew
Breasts
Beauty
Lover
Age
Ages
Unblest

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I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven.
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Open the doors of opportunity to talent and virtue and they will do themselves justice, and property will not be in bad hands.
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The ocean is a large drop a drop is a small ocean.
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Shall we then judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely. 'Tis pedantry to estimate nations by the census, or by square miles of land, or other than by their importance to the mind of the time.
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Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions.
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A man known to us only as a celebrity in politics or in trade, gains largely in our esteem if we discover that he has some intellectual taste or skill.
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Every man is eloquent once in his life.
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The simplest words,--we do not know what they mean except when we love and aspire.
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Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is not an apology, but a life.
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The whole value of history, of biography, is to increase my self-trust, by demonstrating what man can be and do.
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Ability without honor has no value.
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He who knows what sweets and virtues are in the ground, the plants, the waters, the heavens, and how to come at these enchantments - is the rich and royal man.
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All is a riddle, and the key to a riddle...is another riddle.
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And truly it demands something godlike in him who cast off the common motives of humanity and ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster.
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Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?
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If a man carefully examine his thoughts he will be surprised to find how much he lives in the future. His well-being is always ahead. Such a creature is probably immortal.
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We, as we read, must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner must fasten these images to some reality in our secret experience, or we shall learn nothing rightly.
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The permanence of all books is fixed by no effort friendly or hostile, but by their own specific gravity, or the intrinsic importance of their contents to the constant mind of man.
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