Quote

What is it men love in Genius, but its infinite hope, which degrades all it has done? Genius counts all its miracles poor and short. Its own idea it never executed.

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
Ideas
Miracles
Done
Miracle
Never
Infinite
Men
Short
Love
Genius
Degrades
Poor
Executed
Hope
Degrade
Idea
Counts

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It is easy to carp at colleges, and the college, if he will wait for it, will have its own turn. Genius exists there also, but will not answer a call of a committee of the House of Commons. It is rare, precious, eccentric, and darkling.
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We may be partial, but Fate is not.
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Pictures must not be too picturesque.
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Life is a search after power and this is an element with which the world is so saturated,-there is no chink or crevice in which it is not lodged,-that no honest seeking goes unrewarded.
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Every great achievement is the victory of a flaming heart.
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Tis a short sight to limit our faith in laws to those of gravity, of chemistry, of botany, and so forth.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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To me, however, the question of the times resolved itself into a practical question of the conduct of life. How shall I live? We are incompetent to solve the times. Our geometry cannot span the huge orbits of the prevailing ideas, behold their return, and reconcile their opposition. We can only obey our own polarity.
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The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.
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If I should go out of church whenever I hear a false statement I could never stay there five minutes. But why come out? The streetis as false as the church, and when I get to my house, or to my manners, or to my speech, I have not got away from the lie.
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The hero is suffered to be himself.
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The mind will quote whether the tongue does or not.
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Patience and fortitude conquer all things.
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It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can pay.
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Nature avenges herself speedily on the hard pedantry that would chain her waves. She is no literalist. Every thing must be taken genially, and we must be at the top of our condition, to understand any thing rightly.
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Nature is methodical, and doeth her work well. Time is never to be hurried.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Every mind must know the whole lesson for itself,-must go over the whole ground. What it does not see, what it does not live, it will not know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Meek young men grow up in colleges and believe it is their duty to accept the views which books have given, and grow up slaves.
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We are disgusted by gossip yet it is of importance to keep the angels in their proprieties.
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It is very unhappy, but too late to be helped, the discovery we have made, that we exist
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance and it straightens itself to the average tendency.
Ralph Waldo Emerson