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
Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it and had his being there. Alone in all history, he estimated the greatness of man.
The artists must be sacrificed to their art. Like the bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give.
Heroism feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right.
The whole value of history, of biography, is to increase my self-trust, by demonstrating what man can be and do.
Let it suffice that in the light of these two facts, namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its correlative, history isto be read and written.
The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.
We boast our emancipation from many superstitions; but if we have broken any idols, it is through a transfer of idolatry.
The first lesson of history is that evil is good.
Our best history is still poetry.
History is the action and reaction of these two, nature and thought.
In the history of the individual is always an account of his condition, and he knows himself to be a party to his present estate.
In analysing history do not be too profound, for often the causes are quite superficial.
Whatever is old corrupts, and the past turns to snakes.
There is properly no history, only biography.