“I cannot often enough say, that a man is only a relative and representative nature. Each is a hint of the truth, but far enough from being that truth, which yet he quite newly and inevitably suggests to us. If I seek it in him, I shall not find it. Could any man conduct into me the pure stream of that which he pretends to be! Long afterwards, I find that quality elsewhere which he promised me.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

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Ralph Waldo Emerson 727

American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803–1882

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¶ 86 - 89.
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