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
The high prize of life, the crowning fortune of man, is to be born with a bias to some pursuit which finds him in employment and happiness.
The sinew and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous desponding whimperers. We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other.
The vulgar call good fortune that which really is produced by the calculations of genius.
Honor and fortune exist for him who always recognizes the neighborhood of the great, always feels himself in the presence of high causes.
As we are, so we do; and as we do, so is it done to us; we are the builders of our fortunes.
The Sky is the daily bread of the imagination
The times are the masquerade of the eternities
Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful
Things have their laws as well as men; things refuse to be trifled with.
The whole secret of the teacher's force lies in the conviction that man are convertible.
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
Beware what you set your heart upon. For it shall surely be yours.
Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances
Every man believes that he has a greater possibility