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
We are of different opinions at different hours, but we always may be said to be at heart on the side of truth.
The scholar may lose himself in schools, in words, and become a pedant; but when he comprehends his duties, he above all men is arealist, and converses with things.
A man in the wrong may more easily be convinced than one half right.
Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.
We may like well to know what is Plato’s and what is Montesquieu’s or Goethe’s part, and what thought was always dear to the writer himself; but the worth of the sentences consists in their radiancy and equal aptitude to all intelligence. They fit all our facts like a charm. We respect ourselves the more that we know them.
...What torments of pain have you endured that haven't as yet arrived? and may never!
Ever the words of the gods resound; But the porches of man's ear seldom in this low life's round are unsealed, that he may hear.
Consideration is the soil in which wisdom may be expected to grow, and strength be given to every up-springing plant of duty.
The world is a divine dream, from which we may presently awake to the glories and certainties of day.
That which we do not believe, we cannot adequately say; even though we may repeat the words ever so often.
Washington, where an insignificant individual may trespass on a nation's time.
The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight with a verse given in a happy quotation than in the poem.
For what are they all in their high conceit, When man in the bush with God may meet?
We cannot let our angels go; we do not see that they only go out that archangels may come in.