"A man is not to aim at innocence, any more than he is to aim at hair, but he is to keep it."
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Quote collection
Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (page 140 of 211)
4.2K quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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."
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"The imagination and the senses cannot be gratified at the same time."
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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."
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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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"We prize books, and they prize them most who are themselves wise."
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"We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over and actually read a volume of four or five hundred pages."
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"Let him go where he will, he can only find so much beauty or worth as he carries."
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"Culture opens the sense of beauty."
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"Philanthropic and religious bodies do not commonly make their executive officers out of saints."
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"The unbelief of the age is attested by the loud condemnation of trifles."
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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."
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"O friend, never strike sail to a fear!"
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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."
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"Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment."
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"Let us answer a book of ink with a book of flesh and blood."
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"It is not the irregular hours or irregular diet that makes the romantic life."
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"The wise man always throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point."
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"Is there a difference? Yes. We are in harmony with nature, but never at peace."
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"We can see well into the past; we can guess shrewdly into the future, but that which is rolled up and muffled in impenetrable folds is today."
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