Quote

The pulpit and the press have many commonplaces denouncing the thirst for wealth, but if men should take these moralists at their word, and leave off aiming to be rich, the moralists would rush to rekindle at all hazards this love of power in the people, lest civilization should be undone.

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
Civilization
Hazards
Men
Wealth
Lest
Commonplaces
Love
Leave
Undone
Rekindle
People
Rich
Commonplace
Denouncing
Word
Thirst
Moralists
Power
Rush
Moralist
Take
Presses
Aiming
Many
Press
Pulpit

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
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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
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A new degree of intellectual power seems cheap at any price.
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Colleges, in like manner, have their indispensable office,--to teach elements. But they can only highly serve us, when they aim not to drill, but to create when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and, by the concentrated fires, set the hearts of their youth on flame.
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The Gods we worship write their names on our faces be sure of that. And a man will worship something ... That which dominates will determine his life and character. Therefore it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.
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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.
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Five minutes of today are worth as much to me, as five minutes in the next millennium. Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, today.
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The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance.
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But whoso is heroic must find crises to try his edge. Human virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the trial of persecution always proceeds.
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Pride ruined the angels, Their shame them restores And the joy that is sweetest Lurks in stings of remorse.
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All necessary truth is its own evidence.
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The resources of the scholar are proportioned to his confidence in the attributes of the intellect.
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The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks.
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Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is none.
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The genius of the Platonists, is intoxicating to the student, yet how few particulars of it can I detach from all their books.
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The reason of idleness and of crime is the deferring of our hopes.
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Look out! Behind you!
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The Yankee is one who, if he once gets his teeth set on a thing, all creation can't make him let go.
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The advantage of riches remains with him who procured them, not with the heir.
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Who does not sometimes envy the good and the brave, who are no more to suffer from the tumults of the natural world, and await with curious complacency the speedy term of his own conversation with finite nature?
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