"The poisons are our principal medicines, which kill the disease and save the life."
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Quote collection
Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (page 120 of 211)
4.2K quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"So all that is said of the wise man by Stoic or Oriental or modern essayist, describes to each reader his own idea, describes his unattained but attainable self."
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"The flowers talk when the wind blows over them."
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"The boxer's ring is the enjoyment of the part of society whose animal nature alone has been developed."
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"Genius is its own end."
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"The reliance on authority measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul."
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"Nothing is great but the inexhaustible wealth of nature."
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"Is it not better to intimate our astonishment as we pass through this world if it be only for a moment ere we are swallowed up in the yeast of the abyss? I will lift up my hands and say Kosmos."
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"The great poet makes us feel our own wealth, and then we think less of his compositions. His best communication to our mind is to teach us to despise all he has done."
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"The basis of good manners is self-reliance. Necessity is the law of all who are not self-possessed."
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"Shakspeare is the only biographer of Shakspeare; and even he can tell nothing, except to the Shakspeare in us; that is, to our most apprehensive and sympathetic hour."
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"But genius looks forward: the eyes of men are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates."
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"I have sometimes thought that, in order to be a good minister, it was necessary to leave the ministry. The profession is antiquated. In an altered age, we worship in the dead forms of our forefathers."
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"If a man sits down to think, he is immediately asked if he has a headache."
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"We know more from nature than we can at will communicate."
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"You cannot make a cheap palace."
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"Things refuse to be mismanaged for long."
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"When a man becomes cultivated, he develops a new respect for who he is. This causes him to be ashamed of his past identification of himself and others according to things, i.e. property."
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"But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow, and notlead the character and progress of the citizen; the strongest usurper is quickly got rid of; and they only who build on Ideas, build for eternity; and that the form of government which prevails, is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it."
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"I like people who can do things"
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