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
If you believe in fate, believe in it, at least, for your good.
Whatever limits us we call fate.
Tis the privilege of Art Thus to play its cheerful part, Man on earth to acclimate And bend the exile to his fate.
Ah Fate, cannot a man Be wise without a beard? East, West, from Beer to Dan, Say, was it never heard That wisdom might in youth be gotten, Or wit be ripe before 't was rotten?
The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny.
But every jet of chaos which threatens to exterminate us is convertible by intellect into wholesome force. Fate is unpenetrated causes.
Go face the fire at sea, or the cholera in your friend's house, or the burglar in your own, or what danger lies in the way of duty, knowing you are guarded by the cherubim of Destiny. If you believe in Fate to your harm, believe it, at least, for your good.
We shun the rugged battle of fate where strength is born.
If we must accept fate we are not less compelled to affirm liberty, the significance of the individual, the grandeur of duty, the power of character.
Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed under the fire of thought; for causes which are unpenetrated.
A part of fate is the freedom of man. Forever wells up the impulse of choosing and acting in his soul.
Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.
We may be partial, but Fate is not.
The babe in arms is a channel through which the energies we call fate, love, and reason visibly stream.