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I cannot marry the facts of William Shakespeare to his verse: Other men had led lives in some sort of keeping with their thought, but this man is in wide contrast.

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
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Verse
Lives
William
Facts
Verses
Cannot
Shakespeare
Thought
Contrast
Men
Marry
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More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Perception is a mirror not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I am present at the sowing of the seed of the world. With a geometry of sunbeams, the soul lays the foundations of nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Good writing is a kind of skating which carries off the performer where he would not go, and is only right admirable when to all its beauty and speed a subserviency to the will, like that of walking, is added.
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The wise man, the true friend, the finished character, we seek everywhere, and only find in fragments.
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The measure of action is the sentiment from which it proceeds. The greatest action may easily be one of the most private circumstance.
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Life is unnecessarily long. Moments of insight, of fine personal relation, a smile, a glance,--what ample borrowers of eternity they are!
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The scholar may lose himself in schools, in words, and become a pedant but when he comprehends his duties, he above all men is arealist, and converses with things.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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But a compassion for that which is not and cannot be useful and lovely, is degrading and futile.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The best bribe which London offers to-day to the imagination, is, that, in such a vast variety of people and conditions, one can believe there is room for persons of romantic character to exist, and that the poet, the mystic, and the hero may hope to confront their counterparts.
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Instead of feeling a poverty when we encounter a great man, let us treat the new comer like a travelling geologist, who passes through our estate, and shows us good slate, or limestone, or anthracite, in our brush pasture.
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I do not wish to remove from my present prison to a prison a little larger. I wish to break all prisons.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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In America and Europe, the nomadism is of trade and curiosity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The pest of society are the egotist, they are dull and bright, sacred and profane, course and fine. It is a disease that like the flu falls on all constitutions.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We are the children of many sires, and every drop of blood in us in its turn betrays its ancestor.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Sentimentalists ... adopt whatever merit is in good repute, and almost make it hateful with their praise. The warmer their expressions, the colder we feel.... Cure the drunkard, heal the insane, mollify the homicide, civilize the Pawnee, but what lessons can be devised for the debauchee of sentiment?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We are disgusted by gossip yet it is of importance to keep the angels in their proprieties.
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If we meet no gods, it is because we harbor none. If there is grandeur in you, you will find grandeur in porters and sweeps.
Ralph Waldo Emerson