Authors / Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes

1803–1882 · American essayist and poet

Emerson's essays — Self-Reliance above all — are the root system of American self-help. That is exactly why so much later self-help gets pinned on him.

4 real · 3 not theirs

Really theirs

4 quotes traced to Ralph Waldo Emerson's own work or a reliable witness.

Sourced
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

The key word is "foolish" — he is not against consistency as such.

Source: Self-Reliance (1841)
Sourced
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
Source: Self-Reliance (1841)
Sourced
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Source: Circles (1841)
Sourced
The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.
Source: New England Reformers (1844)

Not theirs

3 famous lines credited to Ralph Waldo Emerson that are misquoted, unsourced or belong to someone else.

Not theirs
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Actually: Closest early version is by the poet Muriel Strode (1903): "I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail."

Not theirs
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

Actually: Henry Stanley Haskins, Meditations in Wall Street (1940).

Not theirs
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

Actually: Not found in Emerson's essays, journals or letters; the attribution is modern.