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Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d5/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson_ca1857_retouched.jpg/220px-Ralph_Waldo_Emerson_ca1857_retouched.jpg)
An American lecturer, philosopher, essayist, and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American lecturer, philosopher, essayist, and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.
Here are some famous quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
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Earth laughs in flowers.
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Pride ruined the angels.
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All mankind love a lover.
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The flowering of geometry.
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To Be is to live with God.
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The surest poison is time.
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Hitch your wagon to a star.
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Calmness is always Godlike.
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The first wealth is health.
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Who loses a day loses life.
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All men are poets at heart.
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Skill to do comes of doing.
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To be simple is to be great.
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We never touch but at points.
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A day is a miniature eternity.
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Nature is saturated with deity.
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Beauty without expression tires.
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Whatever limits us we call Fate.
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Culture with us ends in headache.
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Give all to love; obey thy heart.
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America is a country of young men.
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Every hero becomes a bore at last.
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Self-command is the main elegance.
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Every artist was first an amateur.
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A friend is the hope of the heart.
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All diseases run into one old age.
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The world belongs to the energetic.
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Fear always springs from ignorance.
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Sorrow makes us all children again.
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Our best thoughts come from others.
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Make yourself necessary to somebody.
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If a man own land the land owns him.
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Difficulties exist to be surmounted.
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The only reward of virtue is virtue.
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Life is a festival only to the wise.
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We change whether we like it or not.
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It is time to be old To take in sail.
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To believe in luck ... is skepticism.
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Men are what their mothers made them.
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Pictures must not be too picturesque.
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The only gift is a portion of thyself.
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When there is no vision people perish.
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Every burned book enlightens the world.
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The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.
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No sensible person ever made an apology.
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Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.
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Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
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If you shoot at a king you must kill him.
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As soon as there is life there is danger.
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Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.
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I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
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Patience and fortitude conquer all things.
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Man is a piece of the universe made alive.
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Self-trust is the first secret of success.
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No man can have society upon his own terms.
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Every calamity is a spur and valuable hint.
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The only way to have a friend is to be one.
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Obedience alone gives the right to command.
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A man is what he thinks about all day long.
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It is not length of life but depth of life.
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There is properly no history only biography.
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The eyes indicate the antiquity of the soul.
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The greatest man in history was the poorest.
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There is a crack in everything God has made.
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Tis the good reader that makes the good book.
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All great men come out of the middle classes.
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Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.
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Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.
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A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.
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People only see what they are prepared to see.
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Every sweet hath its sour every evil its good.
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Science does not know its debt to imagination.
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A good indignation brings out all one's powers.
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Character is that which can do without success.
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Courage consists of the power of self-recovery.
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Out of sleeping a waking Out of waking a sleep.
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Courage consists in the power of self-recovery.
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The years teach much which the days never know.
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Genius always finds itself a century too early.
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United States! Go put your creed into your deed.
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The secret of education is respecting the pupil.
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A friend is one before whom you may think aloud.
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The faith that stands on authority is not faith.
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Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
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Our faith comes in moments; our vice is habitual.
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When we quarrel how we wish we had been blameless.
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Whosoever would be a man must be a non-conformist.
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Some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise.
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Ah if the rich were rich as the poor fancy riches!
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All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.
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Live wastes itself while we are preparing to live.
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Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.
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The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
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Good breeding a union of kindness and independence.
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The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
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Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
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God enters by a private door into every individual.
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In nature nothing can be given all things are sold.
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An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.
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Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.
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I can find my biography in every fable that I read.
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No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.
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The present is an edifice which God cannot rebuild.
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Men love to wonder and that is the seed of science.
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Every man is a consumer and ought to be a producer.
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If you would lift me you must be on a higher ground.
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An institution is the lengthening shadow of one man.
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A cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word.
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Passion though a bad regulator is a powerful spring.
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The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings.
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We are always getting ready to live but never living.
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Glittering generalities! They are blazing ubiquities.
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Poetry must be as new as foam and as old as the rock.
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There are some men above grief and some men below it.
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O Lord! Unhappy is the man whom man can make unhappy.
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Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.
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Take egotism out and you would castrate the benefactor.
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The one thing in the world of value is the active soul.
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Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.
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Men love to wonder and that is the seed of our science.
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Every man is a consumer and ought to be a producer.
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If you would lift me you must be on a higher ground.
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An institution is the lengthening shadow of one man.
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A cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word.
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Passion though a bad regulator is a powerful spring.
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The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings.
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We are always getting ready to live but never living.
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Glittering generalities! They are blazing ubiquities.
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Poetry must be as new as foam and as old as the rock.
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There are some men above grief and some men below it.
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O Lord! Unhappy is the man whom man can make unhappy.
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Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.
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Take egotism out and you would castrate the benefactor.
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The one thing in the world of value is the active soul.
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Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.
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Men love to wonder and that is the seed of our science.
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Nature is what you may do. There is much you may not do.
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A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
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All history is but the lengthened shadow of a great man.
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Every man passes his life in the search after friendship.
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Accept the place the divine providence has found for you.
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A woman's strength is the irresistible might of weakness.
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As a man thinketh so is he and as a man chooseth so is he.
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A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
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Work and acquire and thou hast chained the wheel of
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To fill the hour and leave no crevice ... that is happiness.
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Philanthropies and charities have a certain air of quackery.
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The question is whether suicide is the way out or the way in.
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A great man stands on God. A small man stands on a great man.
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Discontent is want of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will.
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What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
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The shoemaker makes a good shoe because he makes nothing else.
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For everything you have missed you have gained something else.
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Trust the instinct to the end though you can render no reason.
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Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.
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When nature has work to be done she creates a genius to do it.
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A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.
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Discontent is want of self-discipline; it is infirmity of will.
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Wisdom has its root in goodness not goodness its root in wisdom.
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The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast.
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What torments of grief you endured from evils that never arrived.
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What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.
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The real and lasting victories are those of peace and not of war.
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Perpetual modernness is the measure of merit in every work of art.
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Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
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For what avail the plough or sail Or land or life if freedom fail?
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The disease with which the human mind now labors is want of faith.
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Go oft to the house of thy friend for weeds choke the unused path.
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I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.
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What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.
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The louder he talked of his honor the faster we counted our spoons.
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Let the river roll which way it will cities will rise on its banks.
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For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
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A sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.
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The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.
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The louder he talked of his honour the faster we counted our spoons.
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Shallow men believe in luck wise and strong men in cause and effect.
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With the past I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.
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All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
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Men achieve a certain greatness unawares when working to another aim.
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I pay the School Master but 'tis the school boys that educate my son.
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Friendship requires more time than poor busy men can usually command.
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Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.
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Pain indolence sterility endless ennui have also their lesson for you.
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The secret of success in society is a certain heartiness and sympathy.
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A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.
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AH I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.
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Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.
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Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book.
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All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.
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How casually and unobservedly we make all our most valued acquaintances.
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Though I am weak yet God when prayed Cannot withhold his conquering aid.
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Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function.
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Our knowledge is the amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds.
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Fear is an instructor of great sagacity and the herald of all revolutions.
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The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.
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Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed to be simple is to be great.
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And what greater calamity can fall upon a nation than the loss of worship.
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I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes.
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There is no strong performance without a little fanaticism in the performer.
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The condition which high friendship demands is the ability to do without it.
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Sanity is very rare; every man almost and every woman has a dash of madness.
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It is proof of high culture to say the greatest matters in the simplest way.
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The meaning of good and bad of better and worse is simply helping or hurting.
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A hero is no braver than an ordinary man but he is brave five minutes longer.
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Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants and to serve them one's self?
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Good-bye proud world! I'm going home; Thou are not my friend; I am not thine.
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He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.
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For every minute you remain angry you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.
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The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
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Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill? Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill!
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Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover.
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A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.
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Extremes meet and there is no better example than the naughtiness of humility.
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This time like all times is a very good one if we but know what to do with it.
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The secret of ugliness consists not in irregularity but in being uninteresting.
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Play out the game act well your part and if the gods have blundered we will not.
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The things taught in schools are not an education but the means of an education.
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Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experience.
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No man can have society upon his own terms. If he seeks it he must serve it too.
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Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view.
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The world is all gates all opportunities strings of tension waiting to be struck.
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My evening visitors if they cannot see the clock should find the time in my face.
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A hero is no braver than an ordinary person but he is braver five minutes longer.
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We are very near to greatness: one step and we are safe; can we not take the leap?
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In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening only with his legs.
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Our greatest glory consists not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.
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The mind does not create what it perceives any more than the eye creates the rose.
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Every man is a borrower and a mimic; life is theatrical and literature a quotation.
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Nature is reckless of the individual. When she has points to carry she carries them
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He has not learned the first lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.
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All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are ... punished by fear.
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A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best.
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Shall we judge a country by the majority or by the minority? By the minority surely.
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Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
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He that rides his hobby gently must always give way to him that rides his hobby hard.
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It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
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The cultivated man wise to know and bold to perform is the end to which nature works.
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If I cannot brag of knowing something then I brag of not knowing it at any rate brag.
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Steam is no stronger now than it was a hundred years ago but it is put to better use.
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Do not go where the path may lead go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
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Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes by making them the fruit of his character.
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People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.
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Nature is too thin a screen; the glory of the omnipresent God bursts through everywhere.
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It makes a great difference in the force of a sentence whether a man be behind it or no.
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Peace cannot be achieved through violence it can only be attained through understanding.
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Proportion is almost impossible to human beings. There is no one who does not exaggerate.
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Happiness is a perfume which you cannot pour on someone without getting some on yourself.
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We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates.
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Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
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Cities force growth and make men talkative and entertaining but they make them artificial.
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The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education but the means of education.
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We aim above the mark to hit the mark. Every act hath some falsehood or exaggeration in it.
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If you put a chain around the neck of a slave the other end fastens itself around your own.
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The merit claimed for the Anglican Church is that if you let it alone it will let you alone.
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Poverty Frost Famine Rain Disease are the beadles and guardsmen that hold us to Common Sense.
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What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matter compared to what lies within us.
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The wise man in the storm prays God not for safety from danger but for deliverance from fear.
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It is doubtless a vice to turn one's eyes inward too much but I am my own comedy and tragedy.
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His heart was as great as the world but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong.
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A person seldom falls sick but the bystanders are animated with a faint hope that he will die.
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Alas for the unhappy man that is called to stand in the pulpit and not give the bread of life.
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What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies with in us.
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The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men round to his opinion 20 years later.
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Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
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As soon as beauty is sought not from religion and love but for pleasure it degrades the seeker.
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Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.
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Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful we must carry it with us or we find it not.
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Rings and jewels are not gifts but apologies for gifts. The only true gift is a portion of yourself.
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Artists must be sacrificed to their art. Like bees they must put their lives into the sting they give.
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Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful we must carry it with us or we will not find it.
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Every man has his own courage and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.
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Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other.
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Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men or they are no better than dreams.
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The difference between landscape and landscape is small but there's a great difference in the beholders.
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We think our civilization near its meridian but we are yet only at the cock-crowing and the morning star.
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We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its ends.
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He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.
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To fill the hour that is happiness; to fill the hour and leave no crevice for a repentance or an approval.
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Do not be too timid and squeamish. ... All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
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I wish to say what I think and feel today with the proviso that tomorrow perhaps I shall contradict it all.
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To the dull mind all nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.
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He is only rich who owns the day. There is no king rich man fairy or demon who possesses such power as that.
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Judicious praise is to children what the sun is to flowers. Christian Bovee A little praise Goes a great ways.
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God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please - you can never have both.
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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
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Great men are they who see that the spiritual is stronger than any material force that thoughts rule the world.
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So nigh is grandeur to our dust So near is God to man. When Duty whispers low Thou must The youth replies I can.
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When I first open my eyes upon the morning meadows and look out upon the beautiful world I thank God I am alive.
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The peace of the man who has foresworn the use of the bullet seems to me not quite peace but a canting impotence.
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Some thoughts always find us young and keep us so. Such a thought is the love of the universal and eternal beauty.
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The eloquent man is he who is no beautiful speaker but who is inwardly and desperately drunk with a certain belief.
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Right Now Is the Time to Be Kind You cannot do a kindness too soon for you never know how soon it will be too late.
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The best of life is conversation and the greatest success is confidence or perfect understanding between two people.
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Accept the place the divine providence has found for you the society of your contemporaries the connection of events.
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In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
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There is always a best way of doing everything if it be only to boil an egg. Manners are the happy ways of doing things.
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We fancy men are individuals; so are pumpkins; but every pumpkin in the field goes through every point of pumpkin history.
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There is a certain satisfaction in coming down to the lowest ground of politics for then we get rid of cant and hypocrisy.
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Every reform was once a private opinion and when it shall be a private opinion again it will solve the problem of the age.
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Vigor is contagious and whatever makes us either think or feel strongly adds to our power and enlarges our field of action.
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Why should we grope among the dry bones of the past or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe?
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To believe your own thought to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men - that is genius.
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To finish the moment to find the journey's end in every step of the road to live the greatest number of good hours is wisdom.
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A believer a mind whose faith is consciousness is never disturbed because other persons do not yet see the fact which he sees.
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We are reformers in Spring and Summer; in Autumn and Winter we stand by the old; reformers in the morning conservers at night.
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Strong men greet war tempest hard times. They wish as Pindar said to tread the floors of hell with necessities as hard as iron.
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The whole of what we know is a system of compensations. Each suffering is rewarded; each sacrifice is made up; every debt is paid.
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The power which resides in man is new in nature and none but he knows what that is which he can do nor does he until he has tried.
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A wise man always throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interests than it is theirs to find his weak point.
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Outside among your fellows among strangers you must preserve appearances 100 things you cannot do; but inside the terrible freedom!
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The wise man always throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point.
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If a man carefully examines his thoughts he will be surprised to find how much he lives in the future. His well-being is always ahead.
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Outside among your fellows among strangers you must preserve appearances a hundred things you cannot do; but inside the terrible freedom!
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Music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are and for what whence and whereto.
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We do not live an equal life but one of contrasts and patchwork; now a little joy then a sorrow now a sin then a generous or brave action.
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When a whole nation is roaring patriotism at the top of its voice I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.
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A man is a method a progressive arrangement; a selecting principle gathering his like unto him wherever he goes. What you are comes to you.
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The high prize of life the crowning fortune of a man is to be born with a bias to some pursuit which finds him in employment and happiness.
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A man finds room in a few square inches of his face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history and his wants.
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A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master and a task for life is to furnish watch show it and keep it in repair the rest of his life.
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We can see well into the past; we can guess shrewdly in to the future; but that which is rolled up and muffled in impenetrable folds is today.
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Men run away to other countries because they are not good in their own and run back to their own because they pass for nothing in the new places.
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Whatever you do you need courage. ... To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs.
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Some of your hurts you have cured And the sharpest you still have survived But what torments of grief you endured From the evil which never arrived.
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Man is physically as well as metaphysically a thing of shreds and patches borrowed unequally from good and bad ancestors and a misfit from the start.
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We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing.
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The soul contains the event that shall befall it for the event is only the actualization of its thoughts and what we pray to ourselves for is always granted.
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Five great enemies to peace inhabit us: avarice ambition envy anger and pride. If those enemies were to be banished we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.
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You have first an instinct then an opinion then a knowledge as the plant has root bud and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end though you can render no reason.
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By the rude bridge that arched the flood Their flag to April's breeze unfurl'd; Here once the embattl'd farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world.
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God had infinite time to give us.... He cut it up into a near succession of new mornings and with each therefore a new idea new inventions and new applications.
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No man should travel until he has learned the language of the country he visits otherwise he voluntarily makes himself a great baby - so helpless and ridiculous.
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Speak what you think today in words as hard as cannon balls and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again though it contradict everything you said today.
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When the man is at home his standing in society is well known and quietly taken; but when he is abroad it is problematical and is dependent on the success of his manners.
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Neither is a dictionary a bad book to read. There is no cant in it no excess of explanation and it is full of suggestions the raw material of possible poems and histories.
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Is not marriage an open question when it is alleged from the beginning of the world that such as are in the institution wish to get out and such as are out wish to get in.
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Friendship like the immortality of the soul is too good to be believed. When friendships are real they are not glass threads or frost work but the solidest things we know.
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When Shakespeare is charged with debts to his authors Landor replies 'Yet he was more original than his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them into life.'
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The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness whether it be to make baskets or broadswords or canals or statues or songs.
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We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all things; which is the mean of many extremes.
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We look wishfully to emergencies to eventful revolutionary times ... and think how easy to have taken our part when the drum was rolling and the house was burning over our heads.
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Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.
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It is the privilege of any human work which is well done to invest the doer with a certain haughtiness. He can well afford not to conciliate whose faithful work will answer for him.
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We take care of our health we lay up money we make our roof tight and our clothing sufficient but who provides wisely that he shall not be wanting in the best property of all-friends.
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The days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant friendly party but they say nothing and if we do not use the gifts they bring they carry them as silently away.
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There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion.
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I have heard with admiring submission the experience of the lady who declared that the sense of being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which religion is powerless to bestow.
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A feeble man can see the farms that are fenced and tilled the houses that are built. The strong man sees the possible houses and farms. His eye makes estates as fast as the sun breeds clouds.
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There are three wants which can never be satisfied: that of the rich who want something more; that of the sick who want something different; and that of the traveler who says 'Anywhere but here.'
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It has come to be practically a sort of rule in literature that a man having once shown himself capable of original writing is entitled thenceforth to steal from the writings of others at discretion.
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Excite the soul and the weather and the town and your condition in the world all disappear; the world itself loses its solidity nothing remains but the soul and the Divine Presence in which it lives.
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The effects of opposition are wonderful. There are men who rise refreshed on hearing of a threat men to whom a crises which intimidates and paralyzes the majority comes as graceful and beloved as a bride!
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Creative force like a musical composer goes on unweariedly repeating a simple air or theme now high now low in solo in chorus ten thousand times reverberated till it fills earth and heaven with the chant.
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If a man has good corn or wood or boards or pigs to sell or can make better chairs or knives crucibles or church organs than anybody else you will find a broad hardbeaten road to his house though it be in the woods.
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We are reformers in spring and summer; in autumn and winter we stand by the old; reformers in the morning conservers at night. Reform is affirmative conservatism negative; conservatism goes for comfort reform for truth.
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With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. ... Speak what you think today in words as hard as cannon balls and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again though it contradicts everything you said today.
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The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand nor the kindly smile nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him.
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When a man is pushed tormented defeated he has a chance to learn something; he has been put on his wits; on his manhood; he has gained the facts; learned his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill.
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There are people who have an appetite for grief; pleasure is not strong enough and they crave pain. They have mithridatic stomachs which must be fed on poisoned bread natures so doomed that no prosperity can sooth their ragged and dishevelled desolation.
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Whatever course you decide upon there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires ... courage.
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Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
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Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. As to methods there may be a million and then some but the principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods ignoring principles is sure to have trouble.
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Sleep takes off the costume of circumstance arms us with terrible freedom so that every will rushes to deed. A skillful man reads his dreams for his self-knowledge; yet not the details but the quality. What part does he play in them - a cheerful manly part or a poor drivelling part? However monstrous and grotesque their apparitions they have a substantial truth.
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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again though it contradict everything you said today.