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
What torments of grief you endured, from evils that never arrived
It is very unhappy, but too late to be helped, the discovery we have made, that we exist
A man cannot speak but he judges himself
Skepticism? Yes, but a saint is a skeptic once in twenty-four hours.
When the Master of the universe has points to carry in his government he impresses his will in the structure of minds.
Do not spill thy soul in running hither and yon, grieving over the mistakes and the vices of others. The one person whom it is most necessary to reform is yourself.
The only reward of virtue is virtue.
Whoever is open, loyal, true; of humane and affable demeanour; honourable himself, and in his judgement of others; faithful to his word as to law, and faithful alike to God and man....such a man is a true gentleman.
Every natural power exhilarates; a true talent delights the possessor first.
Plants are the young of the world, vessels of health and vigor; but they grope ever upward towards consciousness; the trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment, rooted in the ground.
When I have attempted to join myself to others by services, it proved an intellectual trick,-no more. They eat your service like apples, and leave you out. But love them, and they feel you, and delight in you all the time.
Are you not scared by seeing that the gypsies are more attractive to us than the apostles?
Shall we then judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely. 'Tis pedantry to estimate nations by the census, or by square miles of land, or other than by their importance to the mind of the time.
If it costs ten years, and ten to recover the general prosperity, the destruction of the South is worth so much.