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Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say "I think, " "I am, " but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested--' But these impulses may be from below, not from above.' I replied, 'They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the devil's child, I will live them from the devil.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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A mind might ponder its thought for ages, and not gain so much self-knowledge as the passion of love shall teach it in a day.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The student is to read history actively not passively.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For every thing that is given, something is taken.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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My life is for itself and not for a spectacle.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is not an apology, but a life.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore it if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Misunderstood! It is a right fool's word. Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested, --" But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if everything were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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To be great is to be misunderstood.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing.. .. The force of character is cumulative.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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What I must do is all that concerns me,Ralph Waldo Emerson
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You would compliment a coxcomb doing a good act, but you would not praise an angel.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Speak your latent conviction.. . Else tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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True love transcends the unworthy object, and dwells and broods on the eternal, and when the poor interposed mask crumbles, it is not sad, but feels rid of so much earth, and feels its independency the surer.Ralph Waldo Emerson