Ralph Waldo Emerson as a Victorian engraving: a long face, side-parted hair and a black stock at the neck, in an oval inside a red and blue printer's border.
After an unknown photographer, about 1859. AI‑generated.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1803–1882

9 genuine quotes, each found in the text, and 4 wrongly credited to Emerson.

American essayist, lecturer and poet from Boston and Concord, a former Unitarian minister who became the leading voice of New England Transcendentalism and Thoreau’s friend and mentor. His essays, above all ‘Self-Reliance’, argue for trusting one’s own mind against conformity and custom, which has made him the default name for modern sayings about being yourself: many lines credited to him online are not in his works.

Check an Emerson quote

FrontispieceMade by an image model after an unknown photographer’s photograph of Ralph Waldo Emerson (about 1859, public domain), in the manner of Victorian letterpress (1810–1900). The likeness is the original’s; this picture is AI‑generated and not historical. The endpaper behind it is an AI‑generated pattern in the same manner.

Genuine Emerson quotes

  1. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

    Essays: First Series (1841), Essay II, “Self-Reliance”.

  2. A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere.

    Essays: First Series (1841), Essay VI, “Friendship”.

  3. Imitation is suicide.

    Essays: First Series (1841), Essay II, “Self-Reliance”.

  4. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

    Essays: First Series (1841), Essay II, “Self-Reliance”.

  5. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

    Essays: First Series (1841), Essay X, “Circles”.

  6. The only way to have a friend is to be one.

    Essays: First Series (1841), Essay VI, “Friendship”.

  7. To be great is to be misunderstood.

    Essays: First Series (1841), Essay II, “Self-Reliance”.

  8. Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

    Essays: First Series (1841), Essay II, “Self-Reliance”.

  9. Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist.

    Essays: First Series (1841), Essay II, “Self-Reliance”.

Quotes wrongly credited to Emerson

  1. What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

    Misattributed. Henry Stanley Haskins wrote it, not Emerson.

  2. To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

    Misattributed. An unknown writer rewording E. E. Cummings wrote it, not Emerson.

  3. Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

    Misattributed. The Emerson attribution is unsupported. The saying adapts a line published by Muriel Strode in 1903; the person who made the modern imperative is unidentified.

  4. To laugh often and much; … This is to have succeeded.

    Misattributed. Not a sourced Emerson quotation. The modern piece adapts Bessie A. Stanley’s 1905 essay; an altered version was credited to Emerson in 1951, but its adapter is unidentified.

The works we hold

Quotes are looked up word for word in these texts. The number is how many genuine quotes here come from each.

WorkYearGenuine quotes
Essays: First Series Essays18419

Editions and translations

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