Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essayist, Philosopher, Poet

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a 19th-century American essayist and philosopher known for his ideas on individualism and nature, particularly in his work 'Self-Reliance.'

Born
May 25, 1803
Died
April 27, 1882
Quotes
4.2K
Rank
#45

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Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (page 29 of 211)

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"By his machines man can dive and remain under water like a shark; can fly like a hawk in the air; can see atoms like a gnat; can see the system of the universe of Uriel, the angel of the sun; can carry whatever loads a ton of coal can lift; can knock down cities with his fist of gunpowder; can recover the history of his race by the medals which the deluge, and every creature, civil or savage or brute, has involuntarily dropped of its existence; and divine the future possibility of the planet and its inhabitants by his perception of laws of nature."

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"You cannot sincerely try to help another without helping yourself"

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"In the highest civilization the book is still the highest delight."

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"The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough."

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"The world is emblematic. Parts of speech are metaphors, because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind."

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"I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor."

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"Every man is a borrower and a mimic, life is theatrical and literature a quotation."

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"The writer, like a priest, must be exempted from secular labor. His work needs a frolic health; he must be at the top of his condition."

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"There is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue."

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"Self reliance, the height and perfection of man, is reliance on God."

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"Every great achievement is the victory of a flaming heart."

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"Dear to us are those who love us... but dearer are those who reject us as unworthy, for they add another life; they build a heaven before us whereof we had not dreamed, and thereby supply to us new powers out of the recesses of the spirit, and urge us to new and unattempted performances."

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"The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed, there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, all ennui s, vanish, all duties even."

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"Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the way of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and already the evil begins to be repaired."

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"All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man has taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first."

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"Put God in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is with-held, the better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer."

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"Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks he is free."

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