Quote

The history of reform is always identical it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are not agreeable to our imagination. We suspect they are unworthy. We arraign our daily employments.

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
Fact
Identical
Idea
Suspect
Living
Suspects
History
Employment
Facts
Comparison
Employments
Ideas
Reform
Modes
Always
Daily
Agreeable
Imagination
Unworthy

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Not a ray is dimmed, not an atom worn nature's oldest force is as good as new.
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He who knows what sweets and virtues are in the ground, the plants, the waters, the heavens, and how to come at these enchantments - is the rich and royal man.
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If the race is good, so is the place.
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The remedy for all blunders, the cure of blindness, the cure of crime, is love.
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The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue and no genius can long or often utter anything which is not invited and gladly entertained by men around him.
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Human beings cannot endure the geological chaos they encounter under the soil of their own gardens.
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I have no hostility to nature, but a child's love to it. I expand and live in the warm day like corn and melons.
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Wherever a man commits a crime, God finds a witness. Every secret crime has its reporter.
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He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, while he who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere.
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We live by our imagination, our admirations, and our sentiments.
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Everything has its price - and if that price is not paid, not that thing but something else is obtained... it is impossible to get anything without this price.
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The regular course of studies, the years of academical and professional education, have not yielded me better facts than some idle books under the bench at the Latin School.
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Fashion understands itself good-breeding and personal superiority of whatever country readily fraternize with those of every other. The chiefs of savage tribes have distinguished themselves in London and Paris, by the purity of their tournure.
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Let us take our bloated nothingness out of the path of the divine circuits.
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Government has been a fossil: it should be a plant.
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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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Repose and cheerfulness are the badge of the gentleman - repose in energy. The Greek battle pieces are calm the heroes, in whatever violent actions engaged, retain a serene aspect.
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The aid we can give each other is only incidental, lateral, and sympathetic.
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