Everyday Emerson: A Year of Wisdom

By Ralph Waldo Emerson

Daily inspiration from American philosopher and transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson

Featuring excerpts from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays, poems, and lectures, Everyday Emerson offers 365 snippets of wisdom and insight from one of America’s greatest writers and philosophers. An astute observer of both nature and society, Emerson’s writing touches on themes of individuality, freedom, and human potential, all of it shot through with a profound love and awe of the natural world.

The excerpts in Everyday Emerson are inspiring and thought provoking—a daily invitation to engage the world with imagination and intention. In addition to daily quotes, the end of the book also includes selections from Emerson's beloved essay "Self-Reliance." Both longtime appreciators of Emerson’s work and readers who would be intimidated by a complete book of essays will find something delightful in its pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Jan 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781250828804

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was a prolific essayist, public philosopher, poet, and political commentator who became world famous in his lifetime and influenced authors as diverse as Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Friedrich Nietzsche, W. E. B. DuBois, and others.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of the main figures of the New England Transcendentalism movement. Though he died just 30 miles from where he was born in Massachusetts, his ideas have inspired people all over the world.

Now it’s your turn to be inspired.

Small sentences can contain huge ideas. When people say they love a book with many pages, they often will return to just a very few quotes within that book, carry them, hold them, live by them, and allow those ideas to enlarge, and expand them to make them better. That’s the purpose of this book: to inspire and enlarge you with the most potent, distilled ideas from Emerson’s vast array of writings and speeches.

Some of these ideas are like Eastern koans—little paradoxical sayings that have layers of meanings the more you read them. Others are inspirational, beckoning you to go within and find your answers inside you.

His ideas are universal. Emerson wrote and taught during a different time, with different norms, including his use of the male pronoun to mean all people. We’ve left his writings as he wrote them, but his ideas include all of us, regardless of gender. If you want to dive further into his ideas and life, make sure to go read more books by and about Emerson.

Here’s a suggestion for how to use this book: read the quote for each day, ponder it, ask yourself if you agree with it and how it applies to you and your life. Then go live your truth. Repeat each day. By the end of the year, you will have gone on an inner adventure that will no doubt positively impact your outer life as well.

These ideas have lived a very long time … and now they can be alive in you.

—Joel Fotinos

JANUARY 1

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

JANUARY 2

Beware what you set your heart upon. For it surely shall be yours.

JANUARY 3

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

JANUARY 4

Good luck is another name for tenacity of