Ralph Waldo Emerson Bio/Wiki, Net Worth, Married 2018
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) 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.Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, Nature. Following this ground-breaking work, he gave a speech entitled "The American Scholar" in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. considered to be America's "Intellectual Declaration of Independence".Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first, then revised them for print. His first two collections of essays – Essays: First Series and Essays: Second Series, published respectively in 1841 and 1844 – represent the core of his thinking, and include such well-known essays as Self-Reliance, The Over-Soul, Circles, The Poet and Experience. Together with Nature, these essays made the decade from the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s Emerson's most fertile period.Emerson wrote on a number of subjects, never espousing fixed philosophical tenets, but developing certain ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for humankind to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Emerson's "nature" was more philosophical than naturalistic: "Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul." Emerson is one of several figures who "took a more pantheist or pandeist approach by rejecting views of God as separate from the world."He remains among the linchpins of the American romantic movement, and his work has greatly influenced the thinkers, writers and poets that have followed him. When asked to sum up his work, he said his central doctrine was "the infinitude of the private man." Emerson is also well known as a mentor and friend of fellow Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau.
Harvard University, Boston Latin School, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard College
Nationality
American
Spouse
Lidian Jackson Emerson, Ellen Louisa Tucker
Children
Edward Waldo Emerson, Ellen Tucker Emerson, Edith Emerson Forbes, Waldo Emerson
Parents
William Emerson, Ruth Haskins
Siblings
William Emerson, Edward Blis Emerson, Robert Bulkeley Emerson, Charles Chauncy Emerson, Phebe Ripley Emerson, John Clark Emerson, Mary Caroline Emerson
Star Sign
Gemini
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Quote
1
To be great is to be misunderstood.
2
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of too much civilization.
3
Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
4
All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all i have not seen.
5
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
6
[on enthusiasm] Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
7
[on criticism] Criticism should not be querulous and wasting, all knife and root-pulling, but guiding, instructive, inspirational-a south wind and not an east wind.
8
[on control] Self-control is coolness and absence of heat and waste.
9
The only way to have a friend is to be one.
10
Insist on yourself; never imitate... Every great man is unique.
11
Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
12
In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.
13
A man is a god in ruins.
14
Men are what their mothers made them.
15
Insist on yourself; never imitate . . . Every great man is unique.
16
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
17
If well used, books are the best of all things; if abused, among the worst.
18
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; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
19
What your heart thinks is great, is great. The soul's emphasis is always right.
20
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
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Fact
1
Elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans in 1900.
2
Pictured on the 3¢ US postage stamp in the Famous American/Authors series, issued 5 February 1940.
$400,000