"A man in debt is so far a slave."
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Quote collection
Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (page 35 of 211)
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"America means opportunity, freedom, power."
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"When we are young, we spend much time and pains in filling our note-books with all definitions of Religion, Love, Poetry, Politics, Art, in the hope that, in the course of a few years, we shall have condensed into our encyclopaedia the net value of all the theories at which the world has yet arrived. But year after year our tables get no completeness, and at last we discover that our curve is a parabola, whose arcs will never meet."
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"I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech. Life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we get tiles and copestones for the masonry of today. This is the way to learn grammar. Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and the work-yard made."
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"Frankness invites frankness."
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"All the thoughts of a turtle are turtle"
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"The world is his who can see through its pretension."
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"The Frenchman invented the ruffle; the Englishman added the shirt."
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"So each man, like each plant, has his parasites. A strong, astringent, bilious nature has more truculent enemies than the slugs and moths that fret my leaves. Such a one has curculios, borers, knife-worms; a swindler ate him first, then a client, then a quack, then smooth, plausible gentlemen, bitter and selfish as Moloch."
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"Behold the Sea, The opaline, the plentiful and strong, Yet beautiful as is the rose in June, Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July; Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds, Purger of earth, and medicine of men; Creating a sweet climate by my breath, Washing out harms and griefs from memory, And, in my mathematic ebb and flow, Giving a hint of that which changes not."
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"It is frivolous to fix pedantically the date of particular inventions. They have all been invented over and over fifty times. Man is the arch machine, of which all these shifts drawn from himself are toy models. He helps himself on each emergency by copying or duplicating his own structure, just so far as then need is."
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"The right merchant is one who has the just average of faculties we call common sense; a man of a strong affinity for facts, who makes up his decision on what he has seen. He is thoroughly persuaded of the truths of arithmetic. There is always a reason, in the man, for his good or bad fortune in making money. Men talk as if there were some magic about this. He knows that all goes on the old road, pound for pound, cent for cent - for every effect a perfect cause - and that good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose."
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"Love is our highest word and the synonym of God."
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"The god of Victory is said to be one-handed, but Peace gives victory to both sides."
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"As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods."
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"Life wastes itself whilst we are preparing to live."
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"The Gods we worship write their names on our faces; be sure of that. And a man will worship something ... That which dominates will determine his life and character. Therefore it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming."
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"No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourself."
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"My giant goes with me wherever I go."
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"A deep man believes that the evil eye can whither, the heart's blessing can heal, and that love can overcome all odds."
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