"Men are lenses through which we read our own minds."
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Quote collection
Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (page 96 of 211)
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"The hard soil and four months of snow make the inhabitants of the northern temperate zone wiser and abler than his fellow who enjoys the fixed smile of the tropics."
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"If in the least particular, one could derange the order of nature, who would accept the gift of life?"
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"Tart, cathartic virtue."
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"Here is the world, sound as a nut, perfect, not the smallest piece of chaos left, never a stitch nor an end, not a mark of haste, or botching, or second thought; but the theory of the world is a thing of shreds and patches."
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"Our moods do not believe in each other. To-day I am full of thoughts, and can write what I please. I see no reason why I should not have the same thought, the same power of expression, to-morrow. What I write, whilst I write it, seems the most natural thing in the world; but yesterday I saw a dreary vacuity in this direction in which now I see so much; and a month hence, I doubt not, I shall wonder who he was that wrote so many continuous pages. Alas for this infirm faith, this will not strenuous, this vast ebb of a vast flow! I am God in nature; I am a weed by the wall."
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"No orator can top the one who can give good nicknames."
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"Each man reserves to himself alone the right of being tedious."
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"The affections cannot keep their youth any more than men."
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"Nor count compartments of the floors, But mount to paradise By the stairway of surprise."
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"To believe in luck ... is skepticism."
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"London is the epitome of our times, and the Rome of to-day."
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"Tis good-will makes intelligence."
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"Works of the intellect are great only by comparison with each other."
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"Be a football to Time and Chance, the more kicks, the better, so that you inspect the whole game and know its utmost law."
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"I can find my biography in every fable that I read."
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"Daughter of Time, the hypocrite Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands; To each they offer gifts after his will, Bread, kingdom, stars, and sky that holds them all; I, in my pleached garden watched the pomp Forgot my morning wishes, hastily Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day Turned and departed silent. I too late Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn."
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"Courage of the soldier awakes the courage of woman."
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"I grieve that grief can teach me nothing, nor carry me one step into real nature."
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"We are disgusted by gossip; yet it is of importance to keep the angels in their proprieties."
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