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
Why should I cumber myself with regrets that the receiver is not capacious? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion.
Nobody is glad in the gladness of another, and our system is one of war, of an injurious superiority. Every child of the Saxon race is educated to wish to be first. It is our system; and a man comes to measure his greatness by the regrets, envies, and hatreds of his competitors.
A man comes to measure his greatness by the regrets, envies and hatreds of his competitors.
You may regret calamities if you can thereby help the sufferer, but if you cannot, mind your own business.
Plato says that the punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is, to live under the government of worse men; and the like regret is suggested to all the auditors, as the penalty of abstaining to speak,--that they shall hear worse orators than themselves.
It is about your outlook towards life. You can either regret or rejoice.
Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the way of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and already the evil begins to be repaired.
The best efforts of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence.
The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence
These times of ours are serious and full of calamity, but all times are essentially alike
Not in his goals but in his transitions is man great
A chief event in life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us
In art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire
Oh, tenderly the haughty day Fills his blue urn with fire