Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson, known professionally as Waldo Emerson, was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth25 May 1803
CountryUnited States of America
He who knows what sweets and virtues are in the ground, the plants, the waters, the heavens, and how to come at these enchantments - is the rich and royal man.
The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most.
I think we must get rid of slavery or we must get rid of freedom.
Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys.
Silence is a solvent that destroys personality, and gives us leave to be great and universal.
Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding.
Society always consists in the greatest part, of young and foolish persons.
Society is a hospital of incurables.
The leaves are falling, falling as from way off, as though far gardens withered in the skies; they are falling with denying gestures. And in the nights the heavy earth is falling from all the stars down into loneliness. We all are falling. This hand falls. And look at others: it is in them all. And yet there is one who holds this falling endlessly gently in his hands.
Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books.
The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest applause.
Skepticism is slow suicide.
Take the place and attitude to which you see your unquestionable right, and all men acquiesce.
A sage is the instructor of a hundred ages.