Quote

All reform aims, in some one particular, to let the soul have its way through us in other words, to engage us to obey.

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
Soul
Way
Aims
Obey
Engage
Aim
Reform
Particular
Words

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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By virtue of this science the poet is the Namer, or Language-maker, naming things sometimes after their appearance, sometimes after their essence, and giving to every one its own name and not another's, thereby rejoicing the intellect, which delights in detachment or boundary.
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A poem is made up of thoughts, each of which filled the whole sky of the poet in its turn.
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Man is the broken giant, and in all his weakness both his body and his mind are invigorated by habits of conversation with nature.
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Live well, learn plenty, laugh often, love much.
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Man is physical as well as metaphysical, a thing of shreds and patches, borrowed unequally from good and bad ancestors, and a misfit from the start.
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Character teaches above our wills.
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Why should the way I feel depend on the thoughts in someone else's head?
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Earth laughs in flowers to see her boastful boys Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet Clear of the grave.
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Cultivate an attitude of gratitude, of giving and forgiving. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
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Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men or they are no better than dreams.
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A great man is always willing to be little.
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A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
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Test of the poet is knowledge of love, For Eros is older than Saturn or Jove Never was poet, of late or of yore, Who was not tremulous with love-lore.
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Miracle comes to the miraculous, not to the arithmetician.
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We want men and women who shall renovate life and our social state but we see that most natures are insolvent, cannot satisfy their own wants, have an ambition out of all proportion to their practical force, and so do lean and beg day and night continually.
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There is no strong performance without a little fanaticism in the performer.
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Cities of mortals woe-begone Fantastic care derides, But in the serious landscape lone Stern benefit abides.
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As long as any man exists, there is some need of him.
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The nobler the truth or sentiment, the less imports the question of authorship.
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Our strength grows out of our weakness.
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