Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essayist, poet and philosopher, 1803–1882. 3 explained quotes and 1 wrongly credited to them.
Beautiful things do not need a purpose to justify them. A flower blooming where no one sees it is reason enough in itself.
Read the full explanation →Emerson means we become strong by harnessing forces greater than ourselves, like wind, water and great ideas, and letting them carry our work. Aim your effort in the direction those higher powers already move.
Read the full explanation →The present day is never ordinary. Emerson warns against the illusion that the important moment is always somewhere else, and says today is the critical, decisive day.
Read the full explanation →A line about inner character mattering more than past or future. It was written in 1940 by Henry Stanley Haskins, not by Emerson, who died in 1882.
See who really said it →No quotes match these filters yet. New quotes are added every week.
About Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was a former Unitarian minister from Massachusetts who became the leading voice of American Transcendentalism, a movement that celebrated intuition, nature and individual conscience. His essays, especially “Nature” and “Self-Reliance,” and his lectures made him one of the most influential American thinkers of the nineteenth century, and he mentored Henry David Thoreau.
Emerson’s essays are full of quotable sentences, so it is not surprising that many lines he never wrote have been added to his name, especially on social media.
More lines by Emerson
Short quotes checked against their sources.
- “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”“Self-Reliance,” Essays, 1841
- “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”“Self-Reliance,” Essays, 1841