Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 72

• In the great books of India, an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence, which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the questions that exercise us.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Exercise, Voice

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• But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and vulgar things.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Stars, Men, Rays

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.30, Harvard University Press

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• There is no privacy that cannot be penetrated. No secret can be kept in the civilized world. Society is a masked ball where everyone hides his real character, then reveals it by hiding

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Real, Character, Secret

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• That which befits us, embosomed in beauty and wonder as we are, is cheerfulness, and courage, and the endeavor to realize our aspirations. Shall not the heart which has received so much, trust the Power by which it lives? May it not quit other leadings, and listen to the Soul that has guided it so gently, and taught it so much, secure that the future will be worthy of the past?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Heart, Past, Soul

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2004). “A Dream Too Wild: Emerson Meditations for Every Day of the Year”, p.7, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

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• Poverty, Frost, Famine, Rain, Disease, are the beadles and guardsmen that hold us to Common Sense.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Rain, Adversity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt McLaughlin (2010). “The Laws of Nature: Excerpts from the Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.14, North Atlantic Books

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• Luck is just another word for tenacity of purpose.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Motivational, Luck

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• Our chief want in life, is,
  someone who shall make us do what we can.
  This is the service of a friend.
  With him we are easily great.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Motivational, Friendship, Want

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.145, Harvard University Press

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• It is one of the biggest blessing that you can be stupid with your true friends and behave like you shame to do elsewhere

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Friendship, True Friend, Stupid

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• If two or three persons should come with a high spiritual aim and with great powers, the world would fall into their hands like a ripe peach.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Spiritual, Business, Fall

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1954). “Basic Selections from Emerson: Essays, Poems & Apothegms”

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• It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Courage, Heart, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.134, Harvard University Press

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• Love not the flower they pluck and know it not, And all their botany is Latin names.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Love, Nature, Latin

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Major Poetry”, p.161, Harvard University Press

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• Culture is one thing and varnish is another.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Other Cultures, Culture, One Thing

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Heart of Emerson's Journals”, p.324, Courier Corporation

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• Nothing is more disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper preamble like a Declaration of Independence, or the statute right to vote, by those who have never dared to think or to act.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Freedom, Men, Thinking

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.84, Penguin

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• I see not any road of perfect peace which a man can walk but after the counsel of his own bosom.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Peace, Hero, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1367, Delphi Classics

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• O friend, never strike sail to a fear!

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Fear, Hero, Strikes

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “Essays”, p.176, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• If you would serve your brother it is fit for you to serve him, do not take back your words when you find that prudent people do not commend you. Be true to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant and broken the monotony of a decorous age.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Brother, Hero

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Essays and English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Five Foot Shelf of Classics, Vol. V (in 51 Volumes)”, p.133, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The unbelief of the age is attested by the loud condemnation of trifles.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Age, Loud, Condemnation

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2011). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.73, Penguin

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• Criticism should not be querulous and wasting, all knife and root-puller, but guiding, instructive, inspiring, a south wind, not an east wind.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wind, Knives, Roots

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1959). “Emerson: A Modern Anthology”

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• The mark of a man of the world is absence of pretension.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Experience, World

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• All persons are puzzles until at last we find in some word or act the key to the man, to the woman; straightway all their past words and actions lie in light before us.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Lying, Past, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.3985, Delphi Classics

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• To fill the hour; that is happiness to fill the hour, and leave no crevice for a repentance or an approval.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Happiness, Joy, Approval

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2004). “A Dream Too Wild: Emerson Meditations for Every Day of the Year”, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

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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

  Truth, Honesty, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Heart of Emerson's Journals”, p.39, Courier Corporation

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• A man is not to aim at innocence, any more than he is to aim at hair, but he is to keep it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Truth, Honesty, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1977). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks: 1852-1855”, p.444, Harvard University Press

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• There is ever a slight suspicion of the burlesque about earnest good men.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Truth, Honesty, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1960). “The Journals”

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• Nature forever puts a premium on reality. What is done for effect is seen to be done for effect; what is done for love is felt to be done for love. A man inspires affection and honor because he was not lying in wait for these.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Truth, Honesty, Lying

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2334, Delphi Classics

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