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About this quote

What does it mean?
Physical beauty without moral grace is deceptive and dangerous.
In plain terms
Pretty things without good intentions can trick you.
What can you take from it?
Look beyond surface beauty to character.

Where it applies

  • relationships
  • judging others
  • art

Putting it to work

  • evaluate character first
  • avoid superficial judgments

Questions to consider

  • Is beauty inherently deceptive?
  • How do you judge worth?

Another view

It dismisses the value of aesthetic appreciation alone.

More from Ralph Waldo Emerson

  1. Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.

    Permalink to quote #207
  2. Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.

    Permalink to quote #209
  3. Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.

    Permalink to quote #206

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