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What matters most is not what is behind us or before us, but what is within us.

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
Within
Matter
Matters
Behinds
Behind

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me and the heart apoints.
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Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him.
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Proverbs, like the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions. That which the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow the realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to say in proverbs without contradiction.
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The writer is an explorer. Every step is an advance into a new land.
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Wise men are not wise at all times.
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My angel,-his name is Freedom,- Choose him to be your king He shall cut pathways east and west, And fend you with his wing.
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Talent may frolic and juggle genius realizes and adds.
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When I was praised I lost my time, for instantly I turned around to look at the work I had thought slightly of, and that day I made nothing new.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Nothing is beneath you if it is in the direction of your life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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But in every constitution some large degree of animal vigor is necessary as material foundation for the higher qualities of the art.
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Every man is not so much a workman in the world as he is a suggestion of that he should be. Men walk as prophecies of the next age.
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The counting-room maxims liberally expounded are laws of the Universe. The merchant's economy is a coarse symbol of the soul's economy. It is, to spend for power, and not for pleasure.
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There are two classes of poets - the poets by education and practice, these we respect and poets by nature, these we love.
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Art, in the artist, is proportion, or, a habitual respect to the whole by an eye loving beauty in details. And the wonder and charm of it is the sanity in insanity which it denotes.
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The nobler the truth or sentiment, the less imports the question of authorship.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Meek young men grow up in libraries.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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As long as civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick there will be bitterness in our laughter, and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men.
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If men would avoid that general language and general manner in which they strive to hide all that is peculiar, and would say only what was uppermost in their own minds, after their own individual manner, every man would be interesting.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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There is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of behavior yield to the energy of the individual.
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For, whom the Muses smile upon, And touch with soft persuasion, His words like a storm-wind can bring Terror and beauty on their wing In his every syllable Lurketh nature veritable.
Ralph Waldo Emerson