Ralph Waldo Emerson

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.'

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

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Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (page 48 of 211)

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"Wherever snow falls, or water flows, or birds fly, wherever day and night meet in twilight, wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds, or sown with stars, wherever are forms with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets into celestial space, wherever is danger, and awe, and love, there is Beauty, plenteous as rain, shed for thee, and though thou shouldest walk the world over, thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune or ignoble."

Beauty Stars Rain
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"It is in rugged crises, in unbearable endurance, and in aims which put sympathy out of the question, that the angel is shown."

Inspirational Angel Endurance
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"There is nothing capricious in nature and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feel it."

Inspirational Life Nature
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"A man is a little thing whilst he works by and for himself, but, when he gives voice to the rules of love and justice, is godlike, his word is current in all countries; and all men, though his enemies, are made his friends and obey it as their own."

Love Men Voice
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"These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of everyone of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs."

Reality Self Names
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"A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist."

Courage Men Being Different
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"Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy."

Life Time Kindness
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"I think sometimes could I only have music on my own terms, could I live in a great city, and know where I could go whenever I wished the ablution and inundation of musical waves, that were a bath and a medicine."

Music Thinking Cities
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"The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action. Only so much do I know, as I have lived. Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life, and whose not."

Transition Action Conscious
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"Let every man shovel out his own snow and the whole city will be passable."

Responsibility Men Cities
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"Sleep lingers all our lifetime about our eyes, as night hovers all day in the boughs of the fir-tree."

Sleep Eye Night
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"By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world."

Bridges America Rude
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"Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts."

Art Society Gains
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"Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for it, and he would be a great soul in future must be a great soul now."

Soul Would Be Duration
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"The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact."

Business Men Hug
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"The whole of heraldry and of chivalry is in courtesy. A man of fine manners shall pronounce your name with all the ornament that titles of nobility could ever add."

Men Names Titles
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"Some people will tell you there is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea."

Tea Drinking People Tea Party
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"The quality of the imagination is to flow and not to freeze."

Imagination Quality Flow
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"Self sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow."

Real Sacrifice Self
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"Wild liberty develops iron conscience. Want of liberty, by strengthening law and decorum, stupefies conscience."

Freedom Law Iron
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