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But in every constitution some large degree of animal vigor is necessary as material foundation for the higher qualities of the art.

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
Higher
Degree
Animal
Material
Quality
Degrees
Artist
Foundation
Art
Large
Every
Materials
Constitution
Vigor
Necessary
Qualities

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The Times are the masquerade of the eternities trivial to the dull, tokens of noble and majestic agents to the wise the receptacle in which the Past leaves its history the quarry out of which the genius of today is building up the Future.
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Nature is reckless of the individual. When she has points to carry, she carries them.
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When a thought of Plato becomes a thought to me,--when a truth that fired the soul of Pindar fires mine, time is no more. When I feel that we two meet in a perception, that our two souls are tinged with the same hue, and do as it were run into one, why should I measure degrees of latitude, why should I count Egyptian years?
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This body, full of faults, Has yet one great quality: Whatever it encounters in this temporal life depends upon one's actions.
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Great men are sincere.
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Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself.
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Ability without honor has no value.
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In the Greek cities, it was reckoned profane, that any person should pretend a property in a work of art, which belonged to all who could behold it.
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The key to every man is his thought.
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The highest proof of civility is that the whole public action of the State is directed on securing the greatest good of the greatest number.
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Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.
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The way to learn German, is, to read the same dozen pages over and over a hundred times, till you know every word and particle in them, and can pronounce and repeat them by heart.
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The best bribe which London offers to-day to the imagination, is, that, in such a vast variety of people and conditions, one can believe there is room for persons of romantic character to exist, and that the poet, the mystic, and the hero may hope to confront their counterparts.
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Pride is handsome, economical pride eradicates so many vices, letting none subsist but itself, that it seems as if it were a great gain to exchange vanity for pride.
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Man is the will, and woman the sentiment. In this ship of humanity, Will is the rudder, and Sentiment the sail when woman affects to steer, the rudder is only a masked sail.
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A man's wife has more power over him than the state has.
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After you have pumped your brains for thoughts and verses, there is a better poetry hinted in whistling a tune on your walk.
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For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and anon a word, a verse, and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem.
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We might as easily reprove the east wind, or the frost, as a political party, whose members, for the most part, could give no account of their position, but stand for the defence of those interests in which they find themselves.
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When good is near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way you shall not discern the foot-prints of any other you shall not see the face of man you shall not hear any name the way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new. It shall exclude example and experience.
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