Biography Of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Words: 1127
Pages: 5
Open Document
One of the greatest American men to ever have been born, Ralph Waldo Emerson, once wrote, "What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think" (231). I think this quote should feel true in identifying us all. We must restrain from giving in to society, becoming one of its robots with no opinions or interests of our own creation. "For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure" (232). Instead, we must become people who live for themselves, and can interact with others without worrying what they’ll think of the confrontation afterwards. For if we could all be comfortable with our own thoughts and beliefs, we would not judge one another the way we do, nor fear judgement from the general public. What point is there in …show more content…
I hope to know that I have spent this life I was granted well, putting myself out into the world and knowing my identity. Wouldn't it be awful to know that life was wasted away, spent worrying over how to please others, your time now running out with no way to gain it all back? We must live for ourselves, starting today, and forget about the cruelness of the society which has taught us otherwise.
As Thoreau once said, "The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land" (257). We live in a country that hides behind a mask to the rest of the world, making it seemingly the epitome of perfection. But in reality, we too are struggling to find peace amongst ourselves. Part of the problem is not necessarily education in this country, but a lack of it. For we spend the first quarter of our lives reading textbooks, and having our creativity and individuality …show more content…
None of us is above the rest, regardless of education, race, gender, sex, sexual orientation, or age. As Whitman once said, "And these one and all tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them; And such as it is to be of these, more or less, I am" (150). A fundamental part of our constitution is that we are all created equal, yet it is human nature for us to forget this, and be in constant battle against one another. For humans, "They measure their esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what each is" (242). We are extremely materialistic, and lift the rich man with poor spirits above the poor man who is rich in spirit. So if one were to question of which of the two possess the greater wealth, I would easily tell you that it is the destitute man. For he may not have the material possessions that the world seeks to obtain, but he has happiness, something that the affluent man is in seek
Show More

Related Documents: Biography Of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson And The Mexican-American War

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American philosopher and an outspoken critic of slavery who is famous for leading the Transcendentalist movement in the nineteenth century, and famous for stressing the importance of self-reliance and individualism. “During the Mexican-American war, he is known for his famous quote, “The United States will conquer Mexico, but it will be as the man who swallows the arsenic which brings him down in turn. Mexico will poison us.” The immediate cause of this war was the annexation…

Words 604 - Pages 3

Ralph Waldo Emerson Research Paper

researching Ralph Waldo Emerson, I decided to organize my paper in four parts. First, I wrote a short biography on the life of Emerson. After, I wrote about the Romantic Movement and how he contributed. Next, I explicated one of Emerson’s poems. Finally, I cited my resources from which I acquired this information. On May 25, 1803, Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts (Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica 1). His mother, Ruth Haskins Emerson, and his father, Rev. William Emerson, also had…

Words 790 - Pages 4

Thoreau: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thoreau Essay

education career as a school teacher in Concord, but that would not last, as Thoreau's refusal in opting for corporal punishment ended in a loss of the position. Out of the tragedy, arose good, for later that year Thoreau would befriend his mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, and learn of transcendentalism. Unable to find Work in the city of Maine, Thoreau returned to Concord to help his eldest brother John open a school, whose lack of physical punishment and emphasis on nature and science made the school quite…

Words 816 - Pages 4

A Slave's Life Essay

runaway slaves also from the South. We lived with a white Christian family who did not support slavery and very much cared about slaves. They took us into their home to care for us and to educate us. It was in the Wilsons’ home that we learned about Ralph…

Words 568 - Pages 3

Sarah Margaret Fuller: Women's Rights Activists

Biography of Sarah Margaret Fuller By; Carol Rivera Sarah Margaret Fuller was a Women's Rights Activists. She was born on May 23, 1810,Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. Timothy Fuller was Margaret's father, as a lawyer, he had high expectations for young Sarah. He arranged for her to learn Greek and Latin as a child. Margaret was the oldest of five children in the family. When Margaret turned 15 she spent most of her days studying French and Italian literature, English philosophy…

Words 411 - Pages 2

Essay on StephanieNorris Final

life for it all to come crashing down and ending now? She knew she was smart, strong, and capable. She was the best-read person in all of New England and highly respected, even amongst men. She was part of the inner circle of writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson. This final moment put her in unfamiliar territory that left her completely out of control. Had Margaret Fuller lived a longer life, and her works not been destroyed with her, the aptitude of women would have been accepted sooner. Adapting…

Words 1228 - Pages 5

Essay about Transcendentalism: Nathaniel Hawthorne and Experimental Brook Farm

Transcendentalists are people who believe that nature is the answer to everything. Transcendentalists like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller are all people who learn from nature. Emerson is the main transcendentalist, he is their leader. He decides to make a “Transcendentalist Club” for all people who believe nature is the key to everything they know and do. Authors like Emerson and Thoreau would write their essays and novels outside in the woods near cabins they own to help concentrate…

Words 1224 - Pages 5

Essay on English notes

Jonathan Edwards- Jonathan Edwards (October 5, 1703 – March 22, 1758) was a Christian preacher and theologian. Edwards "is widely acknowledged to be America's most important and original philosophical theologian," and one of America's greatest intellectuals.[3][4] Edwards's theological work is broad in scope, but he was rooted in Reformed theology, the metaphysics of theological determinism, and the Puritan heritage. Recent studies have emphasized how thoroughly Edwards grounded his life's work on…

Words 3060 - Pages 13

William Carlos Williams And H. D. Holida Doolittle

his essay about how twentieth – century American poets read British, the inauguration and start of American poetry. He believes that American poetry was inaugurated by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1836. He continues that of course there had been poetry written in America before 1836 by some poets, but he claims that it wasn’t until Emerson declared America’s cultural independence in 1836 with his anonymously published essay Nature that the possibility, one might say the project, of American poetry was born…

Words 1232 - Pages 5

Argumentative Essay On Beowulf

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography.” By the same token, history in itself is subjective, therefore, all facts are. Thus, making all facts biased and only possibly true. Beowulf is a tale of heroics and fighting for what one deems right. Beowulf is the story of a warrior named Beowulf who comes to the aid of King Hrothgar and his people to defeat a monster named Grendel. In the end, Grendel is defeated but his…

Words 1061 - Pages 5