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Society is the stage on which manners are shown novels are the literature. Novels are the journal or record of manners and the new importance of these books derives from the fact, that the novelist begins to penetrate the surface, and treat this part of life more worthily.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Age: 78 †
Born: 1803
Born: May 25
Died: 1882
Died: April 27
Biographer
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Essayist
Philosopher
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Boston
Massachusetts
R. W. Emerson
Waldo Emerson
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More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The dearest events are summer-rain.
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All necessary truth is its own evidence.
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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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Imagination is a very high sort of seeing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We, as we read, must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner must fasten these images to some reality in our secret experience, or we shall learn nothing rightly.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Though your views are in straight antagonism to theirs, assume an identity of sentiment, assume that you are saying precisely thatwhich all think, and in the flow of wit and love roll out your paradoxes in solid column, with not the infirmity of a doubt.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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No matter how often defeated, you are born to victory.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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What is the city in which we sit here, but an aggregate of incongruous materials, which have obeyed the will of some man?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Man is a piece of the universe made alive
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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As the traveler who has lost his way, throws his reins on his horse's neck, and trusts to the instinct of the animal to find his road, so must we do with the divine animal who carries us through this world
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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'Well,' said Red Jacket [to someone complaining that he had not enough time], 'I suppose you have all there is.'
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Do not follow where the path may lead.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. Football is four 15-minute quarters. Plus timeouts and commercials.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The wise through excess of wisdom is made a fool.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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What is there of the divine in a load of brick? What ... in a barber shop? ... Much. All.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Convert life into truth.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Nobody is glad in the gladness of another, and our system is one of war, of an injurious superiority. Every child of the Saxon race is educated to wish to be first. It is our system and a man comes to measure his greatness by the regrets, envies, and hatreds of his competitors.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Science in England, in America, is jealous of theory, hates the name of love and moral purpose. There's revenge for this humanity.What manner of man does science make? The boy is not attracted. He says, I do not wish to be such a kind of man as my professor is.
Ralph Waldo Emerson