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If you criticize a fine genius, the odds are that you are out of your reckoning, and, instead of the poet, are censuring your owncaricature of him.

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
Fine
Reckoning
Odds
Criticize
Criticism
Poet
Genius
Instead

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Self-trust is the first secret of success, the belief that if you are here the authorities of the universe put you here, and for cause, or with some task strictly appointed you in your constitution, and so long as you work at that you are well and successful
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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A gentleman makes no noise a lady is serene.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The poet needs a ground in popular tradition on which he may work, and which, again, may restrain his art within the due temperance. It holds him to the people, supplies a foundation for his edifice and, in furnishing so much work done to his hand, leaves him at leisure, and in full strength for the audacities of his imagination.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The vanishing, volatile froth of the present which any shadow will alter, any thought blow away, any event annihilate, is every moment converted into the adamantine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Let a man then know his worth and keep things under his feet.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The wise skeptic does not teach doubt but how] to look for the permanent in the mutable and fleeting.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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What a new face courage puts on everything!
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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If the gatherer gathers too-much, Nature takes out of the man what she puts into his chest swells the estate, but kills the owner. Nature hates, monopolies and exceptions.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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In the true mythology, Love is an immortal child, and Beauty leads him as a guide nor can we express a deeper sense than when we say, Beauty is the pilot of the young soul.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I'm not afraid of falling into my inkpot.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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To educate the wise man, the State exists and with the appearance of the wise man, the State expires. The appearance of charactermakes the state unnecessary. The wise man is the State.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Almost every man we meet requires some civility requires to be humored - he has some fame, some talent, some whim of religion or philanthropy in his head that is not to be questioned, and which spoils all conversation with him. But a friend is a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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A self-denial, no less austere than the saint's, is demanded of the scholar. He must worship truth, and forgo all things for that,and choose defeat and pain, so that his treasure in thought is thereby augmented.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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A man is the prisoner of his power. A topical memory makes him an almanac a talent for debate, disputant skill to get money makes him a miser, that is, a beggar. Culture reduces these inflammations by invoking the aid of other powers against the dominant talent, and by appealing to the rank of powers. It watches success.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Our life is not so much threatened as our perception. Ghostlike we glide through nature, and should not know our place again.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Everything in the universe goes by indirection. There are no straight lines.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Men are better than this theology.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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When we see a soul whose acts are all regal, graceful, and pleasant as roses, we must thank God that such things can be and are.
Ralph Waldo Emerson