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Governments have their origin in the moral identity of men.

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
Origin
Governments
Identity
Moral
Government
Men

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Is it not better to intimate our astonishment as we pass through this world if it be only for a moment ere we are swallowed up in the yeast of the abyss? I will lift up my hands and say Kosmos.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Power and speed be hands and feet.
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Men are better than this theology.
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The House ...She lays her beams in music, In music everyone, To the cadence of the whirling world Which dances around the sun- That so they shall not be displaced By lapses or by wars, But for the love of happy souls Outlive the newest stars.
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An action is the perfection and publication of thought. A right action seems to fill the eye, and to be related to all nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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So in accepting the leading of the sentiments, it is not what we believe concerning the immortality of the soul, or the like, but the universal impulse to believe, that is the material circumstance, and is the principal fact in this history of the globe.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Evil is merely privative, not absolute: it is like cold, which is the privation of beat.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Language is the archives of history.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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How can he [today's writer] be honored, when he does not honor himself when he loses himself in the crowd when he is no longer the lawgiver, but the sycophant, ducking to the giddy opinion of a reckless public.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I like people who like Plato.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The resources of the scholar are proportioned to his confidence in the attributes of the intellect.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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What is man born for but to be a Reformer, a Remaker of what man has made? A renouncer of lies a restorer of truth and good? Imitating that great Nature which embossoms us all, and which sleeps no moment on an old past, but every hour repairs herself, yielding us every morning a new day, with every breath a new life?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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You will think me very pedantic, gentlemen, but holiday though it may be, I have not the smallest interest in any holiday, except as it celebrates real and not pretended joys.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be short, but when we have had our swing of pleasure, our fill of fruit, and our swelter of heat, we say we have had our day.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. (Despite) all the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether... The effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a certain cordial exhilaration.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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There is genius as well in virtue as in intellect. 'Tis the doctrine of faith over works.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other, and thus makes him necessary to society. ... Society can never prosper, but must always be bankrupt, until every man does that which he was created to do.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Women, more than all, are the element and kingdom of illusion. Being fascinated, they fascinate.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We seek our friend not sacredly, but with an adulterate passion which would appropriate him to ourselves.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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An individual has a healthy personality to the exact degree to which they have the propensity to look for the good in every situation.
Ralph Waldo Emerson