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“A man is what he thinks about all day long.”

 

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.

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”

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”.[1] Considered one of the great lecturers of the time, Emerson had an enthusiasm and respect for his audience that enraptured crowds.

“Death comes to all,
but great achievements build a monument
which shall endure until the sun grows cold.”

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