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Wild liberty develops iron conscience. Want of liberty, by strengthening law and decorum, stupefies conscience.

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
Wild
Conscience
Liberty
Law
Freedom
Decorum
Strengthening
Develops
Iron

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It all begins when the soul would have its way with you.
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The right eloquence needs no bell to call the people together, and no constable to keep them.
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There is a capacity of virtue in us, and there is a capacity of vice to make your blood creep.
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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.
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Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our own spontaneous expression with good humored inflexibility whether the whole cry of voices is on the other side.
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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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Character wants room must not be crowded on by persons, nor be judged from glimpses got in the press of affairs, or on few occasions. It needs perspective, as a great building.
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As a man thinketh, so is he, and as a man chooseth, so is he.
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Though I am weak, yet God, when prayed, Cannot withhold his conquering aid.
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In the first place, all books that get fairly into the vital air of the world were written by the successful class, by the affirming and advancing class, who utter what tens of thousands feel though they cannot say.
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When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something ... he learns his ignorance, is cured of the insanity of conceit has got moderation and real skill.
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All natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence.
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The human heart concerns us more than the poring into microscopes, and is larger than can be measured by the pompous figures of the astronomer.
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It is hard to mesmerize ourselves, to whip our own top but through sympathy we are capable of energy and endurance. Concert fires people to a certain fury of performance they can rarely reach alone.
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The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight with a verse given in a happy quotation than in the poem.
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The vocabulary of an omniscient man would embrace words and images excluded from polite conversation. What would be base, or even obscene, to the obscene, becomes illustrious, spoken in a new connexion of thought.
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