"Genius, even, as it is the greatest good, is he greatest harm."
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Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (page 79 of 211)
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"There can never be deep peace between two spirits, never mutual respect, until, in their dialogue, each stands for the whole world."
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"The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still, and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance, that he goes the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign, and not like an interloper or a valet."
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"The world - this shadow of the soul, or other me - lies wide around. Its attractions are the keys which unlock my thoughts and make me acquainted with myself. I run eagerly into this resounding tumult... So much only of life as I know by experience... The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of power."
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"That is ever the difference between the wise and the unwise: the latter wonders at what is unusual; the wise man wonders at the usual."
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"Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinction. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit. It is like ice, on which no beauty of form, no majesty of carriage, can plead any immunity; they must walk gingerly, according to the laws of ice, or down they must go, dignity and all."
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"True wit never made us laugh."
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"The finest wits have their sediment."
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"Wisdom is infused into every form."
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"Providence has a wild, rough, incalculable road to its end, and it is of no use to try to whitewash its huge, mixed instrumentalities, or to dress up that terrific benefactor in a clean shirt and white neckcloth of a student in divinity."
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"It is so wonderful to our neurologists that a man can see without his eyes, that it does not occur to them that is just as wonderful that he should see with them; and that is ever the difference between the wise and the unwise: the latter wonders at what is unusual, the wise man wonders at the usual."
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"The Times are the masquerade of the eternities; trivial to the dull, tokens of noble and majestic agents to the wise; the receptacle in which the Past leaves its history; the quarry out of which the genius of today is building up the Future."
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"To a physician, each man, each woman, is an amplification of one organ."
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"There is more difference in the quality of our pleasures than in the amount."
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"Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, a possession for all time."
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"Every known fact in natural science was divined by the presentiment of somebody, before it was actually verified."
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"Our faith comes in moments; our vice is habitual."
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"A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before."
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"Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints."
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"What goes on around you... compares little with what goes on inside you."
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