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All necessary truth is its own evidence.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Truth is self-evident and does not require external validation.

Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote suggests that inherent truths carry their own validity and do not need external proof or justification. This reflects a philosophical stance that recognizes the intuitive understanding of certain truths that resonate deeply within us without the need for corroboration from others.

Themes

TruthEvidencePhilosophyValiditySelf-Evidence

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about critical thinking, one could reference this quote to emphasize the importance of recognizing self-evident truths.

More from Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
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Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
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Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
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Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
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The world belongs to the energetic.
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Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
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