Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

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About Ralph Waldo Emerson

Portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and critical thinking, as well as...

More quotations from Ralph Waldo Emerson

Traveling is a fool's paradise.… I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities 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.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

life experiment

Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In a virtuous community, men of sense and of principle will always be placed at the head of affairs. In a declining state of public morals, men will be so blinded to their true interests as to put the incapable and unworthy at the helm. It is therefore vain to complain of the follies or crimes of a government. We must lay our hands on our own hearts and say, "Here is the sin that makes the public sin.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

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More quotations tagged with “better”

Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.

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Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

—Eugene V. Debs

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This was the dawn of plastic eating in America.… We doted on Velveeta. Spam. Canned ravioli. Instant puddings. Instant anything. The farther a thing was from the texture, flavor, and terrifying unpredictability of real food, the better.

—Shirley Abbott

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Love's about finding the one person who makes your heart complete. Who makes you a better person than you ever dreamed you could be.

—Julia Quinn in The Viscount Who Loved Me

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I believe that having something to hope for—even if it's just a better tomorrow—is the most powerful drug on this planet.

—Jodi Picoult in The Storyteller

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17 Jan 2015 Added