Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes on Growth
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The sublime is excited in me by the great stoical doctrine, Obey thyself.
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The man who renounces himself, comes to himself.
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What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered.
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Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
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It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, - 'Always do what you are afraid to do.'
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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 to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. - 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' - 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.
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Though thou loved her as thyself, As a self of purer clay, Tho' her parting dims the day, Stealing grace from all alive, Heartily know, When half-gods go, The gods arrive.
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All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.
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We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.
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Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.
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Ever from one who comes to-morrow Men wait their good and truth to borrow.
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The best university that can be recommended to a man of ideas is the gauntlet of the mobs.
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Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.
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The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most.
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Every artist was first an amateur.
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Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: Every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him.
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Every man I meet is in some way my superior.
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I no more remember the books I have read than the meals I have eaten, but they have made me.
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Salvation would not be a question of accepting a creed, but of acquiring insight.