Quote

Our friends early appear to us as representatives of certain ideas, which they never pass or exceed. They stand on the brink of the ocean of thought and power, but they never take a single step that would bring them there.

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
Would
Bring
Appear
Friends
Pass
Thought
Ocean
Certain
Step
Power
Early
Ideas
Steps
Brink
Take
Single
Exceed
Never
Stand
Representatives

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When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.
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Speak your latent conviction. . . Else tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.
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He presents me with what is always an acceptable gift who brings me news of a great thought before unknown. He enriches me without impoverishing himself.
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The population of the world is a conditional population these are not the best, but the best that could live in the existing state of soils, gases, animals, and morals: the best that could yet live there shall be a better, please God.
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The river knows the way to the sea: Without a pilot it runs and falls, Blessing all lands with its charity.
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He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, while he who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere.
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The connection between our knowledge and the abyss of being is still real, and the explication must be not less magnificent.
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The religion which is to guide and fulfill the present and coming ages, whatever else it be, must be intellectual. The scientific mind must have a faith which is science.
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These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world.
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Every man's task [his 'great dream' and impassioned life-goal] is his life preserver.
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The imaginative faculty of the soul must be fed with objects immense and eternal.
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I like people who can do things
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That is ever the difference between the wise and the unwise: the latter wonders at what is unusual the wise man wonders at the usual.
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Though we travel the world over to find beauty, we must carry it with us or we find it not . . . The difference between landscape and landscape is small, but there is a great difference in beholders.
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Spirit, that made those heroes dare To die, and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and thee.
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The greatest genius is the most indebted person.
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It makes a great difference in the force of a sentence, whether a man be behind it or no.
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The world is the ring of his spells, And the play of his miracles.
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When science is learned in love, and its powers are wielded by love, they will appear the supplements and continuations of the material creation.
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If with love thy heart has burned If thy love is unreturned Hide thy grief within thy breast, Though it tear thee unexpressed.
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