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Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is not an apology, but a life.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
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Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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