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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.
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
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Biography
Men
Biographies
Increase
Value
Trust
Values
History
Self
Demonstrating
More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Napoleon said of Massena, that he was not himself until the battle began to go against him then, when the dead began to fall in ranks around him, awoke his powers of combination, and he put on terror and victory as a robe.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
In the actual world--the painful kingdom of time and place--dwell care, and canker, and fear. With thought, with the ideal, is immortal hilarity, the rose of joy.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Very idle is all curiosity concerning other people's estimate of us, and all fear of remaining unknown is not less so.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The cheapness of man is every day's tragedy. It is as real a loss that others should be low, as that we should be low for we musthave a society.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Converse with a mind that is grandly simple, and literature looks like word-catching.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is always a best way of doing everything.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
He, who loves the bristle of bayonets, only sees in their glitter what beforehand he feels in his hand.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Society, to be sure, does not like this very well it saith, Whoso goes to walk alone, accuses the whole world he declares all to be unfit to be his companions it is very uncivil, nay, insulting Society will retaliate.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Make youself necessary to someone.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every young man is prone to be misled by the suggestions of his own ill-founded ambition which he mistakes for the promptings of asecret genius, and thence dreams of unrivaled greatness.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I like man, but not men.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
My good hoe as it bites the ground revenges my wrongs, and I have less lust to bite my enemies. In the smoothing the rough hillocks, I smooth my temper.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We live by our imagination, our admirations, and our sentiments.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have no expectation that any man will read history aright who thinks that what was done in a remote age, by men whose names have resounded far, has any deeper sense than what he is doing today.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
When its errands are noble and adequate, a steamboat bridging the Atlantic between Old and New England, and arriving at its ports with the punctuality of a planet, is a step of man into harmony with nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Behind us, as we go, all things assume pleasing forms, as clouds do far off. Not only things familiar and stale, but even the tragic and terrible, are comely, as they take their place in the pictures of memory.
Ralph Waldo Emerson