Quote

We swim, day by day, on a river of delusions, and are effectually amused with houses and towns in the air, of which the men aboutus are dupes. But life is a sincerity.

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
Life
Delusion
Swim
River
Effectually
Towns
Dupes
Rivers
Delusions
Air
Amused
House
Sincerity
Men
Houses

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Let him go where he will, he can only find so much beauty or worth as he carries.
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Language is the archives of history.
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Every really able man, in whatever direction he works - a man of large affairs, an inventor, a statesman, an orator, a poet, a painter - if you talk sincerely with him, considers his work, however much admired, as far short of what it should be. What is this Better, this flying Ideal, but the perpetual promise of his Creator?
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I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.
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If it costs ten years, and ten to recover the general prosperity, the destruction of the South is worth so much.
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We do not count a man's years until he has nothing else to count.
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I give you joy of your free and brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment which so delights us, and which large perception only can inspire.
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A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.
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To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be madeby the reception of beautiful sentiments.
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We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.
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Cities force growth and make people talkative and entertaining, but they also make them artificial.
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The learned and the studious of thought have no monopoly of wisdom. Their violence of direction in some degree disqualifies them to think truly.
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The counting-room maxims liberally expounded are laws of the Universe. The merchant's economy is a coarse symbol of the soul's economy. It is, to spend for power, and not for pleasure.
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O friend, never strike sail to a fear! Come into port greatly, or sail with God the seas.
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But hospitality must be for service, and not for show, or it pulls down the host. The brave soul rates itself too high to value itself by the splendor of its table and draperies. It gives what it hath, and all it hath, but its own majesty can lend a better grace to bannocks and fair water than belong to city feasts.
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Each of us sees in others what we carry in our own hearts.
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By virtue of the Deity thought renews itself inexhaustibly every day and the thing whereon it shines, though it were dust and sand, is a new subject with countless relations.
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