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
To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars.
A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life.
The music that can deepest reach and cure all ill is cordial speech.
To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine.
Some of your griefs you have cured, And the sharpest you still have survived, But what torments of grief you've endured From evils that never arrived.
Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good. 'Tis but one step more to think one vote will do no harm.
All the mistakes I make arise from forsaking my own station and trying to see the object from another person's point of view.
Greatness is a property for which no man can receive credit too soon; it must be possessed long before it is acknowledged.
The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child.
In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends imprisoned by an enchanter in paper and leathern boxes.
There is one other reason for dressing well, namely that dogs respect it, and will not attack you in good clothes.
It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourself.
It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine.