Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement. This “Sage of Concord, Massachusetts” wrote Self-Reliance (1841) and other critical essays that have since achieved the status of holy writ.
Born in Boston, Emerson was deeply influenced by his aunt, Mary Moody Emerson. Even though she was not formally educated, she was talented and was widely read. She introduced Emerson to diverse philosophies and spiritual values—including the Hindu scriptures that he would revisit in his later years. It was Aunt Mary that motivated many of Emerson’s famous aphorisms, “Always do what you are afraid to do,” and “Despise trifles,” and “Oh, blessed, blessed poverty.”
Emerson got into Harvard at 14. There, he began keeping journals, which he called his “savings bank.” Later in life, he suggested this practice to his friend and protégé, the philosopher and naturalist, Henry David Thoreau.
Emerson was an average student and graduated in the middle of his Harvard Divinity School class. In the tradition of many family members before him, he became a Unitarian minister. However, in 1832, after his wife Ellen died of tuberculosis at the age of 19, he was deeply distressed and started to have misgivings about the teachings of the church.
Emerson toured Europe in 1833 and became a protégé of the Scottish philosopher and historian Thomas Carlyle. After returning to America, he embarked on an exceptional literary career. In his book Nature (1836,) Emerson first introduced Transcendentalism, the idea that spiritual truth could be gained by intuition rather than by traditional doctrine or text.
Emerson was also a wisdom writer and an acclaimed public lecturer. Many of his essays began as journal entries, then developed into lectures, and later refined for publication. He gave some 1,500 speeches in his lifetime about not only his philosophical tenets but also individuality and freedom.
Emerson’s essays and lectures had a profound influence on the philosophers, authors, and poets who came after him. Most prominently, his beliefs and his idealism were strong influences on the works of Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman, as well as numerous others. His writings are considered masterpieces of 19th-century American literature, religion, and thought.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Talent, Character
Every advantage has its tax.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Taxation, Taxes
There is always a best way of doing everything.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Excellence
When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Create, Nature, Work, Wildlife, Genius
The soul contains the event that shall befall it, for the event is only the actualization of its thoughts; and what we pray to ourselves for is always granted.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Optimism, Positive Attitudes
Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
In like manner the effect of every action is measured by the depth of the sentiment from which it proceeds. The great man knew not that he was great. It took a century or two for that fact to appear. What he did, he did, he did because he must; it was the most natural thing in the world, and grew out of the circumstances of the moment.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Great, Action, Act, Life, New
The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: World
Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces that incessantly draw great events.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Heart, Events
Poverty, frost, famine, rain, disease, are the beadles and guardsmen that hold us to common sense.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Adversity, Motivation
Faith and love are apt to be spasmodic in the best minds. Men live on the brink of mysteries and harmonies into which they never enter, and with their hand on the door-latch they die outside.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Faith
There can be no high civility without a deep morality.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Morality, Morals
The books which once we valued more than the apple of the eye, we have quite exhausted. What is that but, saying that we have come up with the point of view which the universal mind took through the eyes of one scribe; we have been that man, and have passed on.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Progress
The person who screams, or uses the superlative degree, or converses with heat, puts whole drawing-rooms to flight. If you wish to be loved, love measure. You must have genius or a prodigious usefulness if you will hide the want of measure.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Manners
People do not deserve to have good writings; they are so pleased with the bad.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Books, Literature
A woman should always challenge our respect, and never move our compassion.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Compassion
What is the hardest task in the world? To think.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Thought
Beauty is the pilot of the young soul.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Beauty
Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Difficulties, Difficulty, Resolve, Planning, Courage, Peace, Bravery, Virtues, Success, Endurance, Criticism, Action, Perseverance
Happy is the hearing man; unhappy the speaking man.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Speaking
All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Trust, Faith, Belief
A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Virtues, Beauty, Gardening, Vision, Discovery, Virtue
The good rain, like a bad preacher, does not know when to leave off.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Preaching, Evangelism, Nature
To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Inner-child
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Living, Life
Besides the general infusion of wit to heighten civility, the direct splendor of intellectual power is ever welcome in fine society, as the costliest addition to its rule and its credit.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Society
A best friend is like a four leaf clover, hard to find and lucky to have
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every man needs to thank his faults.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain; and there is no good theory of a disease which does not at once suggest a cure.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Values, Principles, Value
Our high respect for a well read person is praise enough for literature.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Books, Reading
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