Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

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What is the city in which we sit here, but an aggregate of incongruous materials, which have obeyed the will of some man?

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I find nothing healthful or exalting in the smooth conventions of society. I do not like the close air of saloons. I begin to suspect myself to be a prisoner, though treated with all this courtesy and luxury. I pay a destructive tax in my conformity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Great conversation... requires an absolute running of two souls into one.

Ralph Waldo Emerson