“The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Harvard Divinity School Address (Primary source)
Delivered at Harvard, this controversial speech challenged traditional religious doctrines and called for a more personal and intuitive understanding of spirituality. Emerson advocated for a direct experience of God within oneself, rather than relying on intermediaries or historical dogma.
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“Imitation cannot go above its model. The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it, because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator, something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man’s.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“The law of nature is, do the thing, and you shall have the power: but they who do not the thing have not the power.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary sourceMore quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson →
“If Jack’s in love, he’s no judge of Jill’s beauty.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“At the working man’s house hunger looks in but dares not enter.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“No one comes back from the dead; no one has come into the world without weeping. No one asks when one wants to come in; no one asks when one wants to go out.”
— Søren Kierkegaard Primary source“Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think.”
— Ayn Rand Primary sourceImitation Originality Creativity