On May 25, 1803, Boston, Massachusetts, saw the birth of Ralph Waldo Emerson. A family of Unitarian pastors, he was the second of five boys. When Ralph was eight years old, William Emerson passed away, leaving his family in a financial crisis. Emerson was nevertheless able to enroll in Harvard University and complete his studies there in 1821 despite this. After earning his degree, he worked as a teacher for a while before starting his ministry training.
Despite having a Massachusetts Ministerial Association preaching license in 1829, Emerson never felt at ease in the pulpit. In 1832, he left the ministry and went to Europe. While there, he interacted with many of the top writers and philosophers of the time, including William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Emerson started giving lectures on a range of subjects, such as literature, philosophy, and religion, after his return to America in 1833. He swiftly rose to the top of the speaker rankings in the nation, and publications like newspapers and magazines frequently featured his talks. He wed Lydia Jackson in 1836, and the couple had five kids together.
In his first book, “Nature,” published in 1841, Emerson outlined his Transcendentalist philosophy, which stressed the inherent goodness of human nature, the value of individuality and the capacity of the human spirit to transcend the bounds of the physical universe. After this piece, “Essays,” “Essays: Second Series,” “Representative Men,” and “Society and Solitude” came out.
Being one of the greatest philosophers of his day, Emerson’s thoughts had a significant impact on American literature and society. His lectures and writings on these subjects were read and discussed widely because he was a fervent supporter of abolition and women’s rights.
In 1872, Emerson’s health began to decline, and he retired from lecturing. He continued to write, however, and his last book, “Parnassus,” was published in 1875. Ralph Waldo Emerson died on April 27, 1882, in Concord, Massachusetts. He is remembered as one of the most important figures in American literature and philosophy, and his works continue to be widely read and studied today.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
- Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.
- Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.
- Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed.
- Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.
- Wherever the invitation of men or your own occasions lead you, speak the very truth, as your life and conscience teach it, and cheer the waiting, fainting hearts of men with new hope and new revelation.
- Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.
- Character is always known. Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls.
- God screens us evermore from premature ideas.
- People with great gifts are easy to find, but symmetrical and balanced ones never.
- Nature is the incarnation of thought. The world is the mind precipitated.
- Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.
- Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests, and mines, and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.
- Genius always finds itself a century too early.
- The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.
- There is more difference in the quality of our pleasures than in the amount.
- People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.
- A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue.
- It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can pay.
- If the tongue had not been framed for articulation, man would still be a beast in the forest.
- Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.
- We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse.
- Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.
- Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.
- The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.
- The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.
- Beauty without expression is boring.
- In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.
- No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.
- Some books leave us free and some books make us free.
- With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.
- Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
- To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
- It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
- Always do what you are afraid to do.
- A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
- The only way to have a friend is to be one.
- Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
- Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
- He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.
- Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle.
- The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
