“Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Disputed“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson DisputedTradition Imitation Creativity Self-expression Leadership