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Quotes

30-01-17

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Be yourself

Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson (Boston MA, May 25, 1803 - Concord MA, April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of William Emerson, a Unitarian minister. After he himself also became Unitarian, he became more of a transcendentalist. 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.