Quote

The goitre of egotism is so frequent among notable persons, that we must infer some strong necessity in nature which it subservessuch as we see in the sexual attraction.

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
Sex
Among
Infer
Strong
Frequent
Nature
Notable
Persons
Egotism
Must
Necessity
Attraction
Sexual

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Throw a stone into the stream and the ripples that propagate themselves are the beautiful type of all influence.
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The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate men.
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Improve your spare moments and they will become the brightest gems in your life.
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Perhaps it is the lowest of the qualities of an orator, but it is, on so many occasions, of chief importance,--a certain robust and radiant physical health or--shall I say?--great volumes of animal heat.
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We know that madness belongs to love,--what power to paint a vile object in hues of heaven.
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The plays of children are nonsense, but very educative nonsense. So it is with the largest and solemnest things, with commerce, government, church, marriage, and so with the history of every man's bread, and the ways by which he is to come by it.
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Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.
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Fear God, and where you go men shall think they walk in hallowed cathedrals.
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The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for greatness, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.
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Prayer as a means to effect a private end is theft and meanness.
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When it is dark enough, men see the stars.
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It seems as if nature, in regarding the geologic night behind her, when, in five or six millenniums, she had turned out five or six men, as Homer, Phidias, Menu, and Columbus, was no wise discontented with the result. These samples attested the virtue of the tree.
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Obedience alone gives the right to command.
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Work and thou canst escape the reward whether the work be fine or course, planting corn or writing epics, so only it be honest work, done to thine own approbation, it shall earn a reward to the senses as well as to the thought.
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If it costs ten years, and ten to recover the general prosperity, the destruction of the South is worth so much.
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 whole of what we know is a system of compensation. Every defect in one manner is made up in another. Every suffering is rewarded every sacrifice is made up every debt is paid.
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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.
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The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly.
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The student is to read history actively and not passively to esteem his own life the text, and books the commentary. Thus compelled, the muse of history will utter oracles as never to those who do not respect themselves.
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