CNN
MSNBC News

                    

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the son of a Unitarian minister from a family of ministers, went to Harvard at age 14, was awarded scholarships and worked his way through by tutoring at another school and waiting tables in the Harvard Commons dining hall.  He graduated from Harvard at age 18. He made his living from that time in 1821 until he entered Harvard Divinity School through teaching and being the head administrator for both his brother’s and his own school. After this second graduation, he became a Unitarian pastor for 3 years, had a falling out with senior Unitarians, and then earned his living as a freelance lecturer and writer throughout the rest of his life.

He influenced and was friends with many contemporary writers, poets and fellow transcendental philosophers including Henry David Thoreau - who used Emerson’s cabin in Walden Pond to write his famous book Walden – William James, Nathanial Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, William Wordsworth and John Stuart Mill.

Emerson’s philosophy was built around themes of individualism, non-dualism and the American philosophy that evolved through his writings, Thoreau’s, and his godson, William James’ work, Transcendentalism.

“Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood?  Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

“Music takes us out of the ordinary and whispers secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

 

“You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

 

“Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising, which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

 

“A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

 

“Money often costs too much.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

~   ~   ~   ~   ~

 

Emerson speaks on accomplishment and serenity...

I like not the man who is thinking how to be good, but the man thinking how to accomplish his work.”

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it well and serenely...”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

~   ~   ~   ~   ~

Back To Today's Quotes

 

eBay
eBay's Half.com
Shopping Sites
Richard Chandler blog
Natural Health, Massage
Yoga Insights
Self Development