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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
Strengthening
Develops
Iron
Wild
Conscience
Liberty
Law
Freedom
Decorum

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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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Labor is God's education.
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Everything in our world, even a drop of dew, is a microcosm of the universe.
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The power of love, as the basis of a State, has never been tried.
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A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.
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Yet these uneasy pleasures and fine pains are for curiosity, and not for life.
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People are timid and apologetic they are no longer upright they dare not say I think, I am, but quote some saint or sage. They are ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones they are for what they are they exist with God to-day.
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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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Nature is methodical, and doeth her work well. Time is never to be hurried.
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There is no architect Can build as the Muse can She is skilful to select Materials for her plan.
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The pulpit and the press have many commonplaces denouncing the thirst for wealth, but if men should take these moralists at their word, and leave off aiming to be rich, the moralists would rush to rekindle at all hazards this love of power in the people, lest civilization should be undone.
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An empire is an immense egotism.
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The poet's habit of living should be set on a key so low that the common influences should delight him.
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Want is a growing giant whom the coat of have was never large enough to cover.
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Men are better than this theology.
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Art is a jealous mistress.
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Thus is man made equal to every event. He can face danger for the right. A poor, tender, painful body, he can run into flame or bullets or pestilence, with duty for his guide.
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One of the benefits of a college education is to show the boy its little avail.
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We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to skate well on them
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Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, Nor time unmake what poets know
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