What Ralph Waldo Emerson thinks about education
American essayist and lecturer (1803 to 1882); began his career as a Unitarian minister in Boston; author of essays including Self-Reliance, History, The Over-Soul and Fate.
Ralph Waldo Emerson did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
Filter education · Newest first
Only Ralph Waldo Emerson on education. See everyone on education
4 dated positions, 1837 to c. 1841–1847, in their own words. Our reading of what Ralph Waldo Emerson has said — not written or endorsed by them.
-
Our readingEnvy is ignorance and imitation is suicide
Their wordsThere is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.
↗Essays, First Series (1841)gutenberg.org All 22 from this book
-
Their wordsTo educate the wise man the State exists, and with the appearance of the wise man the State expires. The appearance of character makes the State unnecessary.
↗Essays, Second Series (1844)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
-
Our readingDemocracy tends to anarchy, yet it is indispensable to stop all being absorbed into a few
Their wordsDemocracy is morose, and runs to anarchy, but in the State and in the schools it is indispensable to resist the consolidation of all men into a few men.
↗Essays, Second Series (1844)gutenberg.org All 20 from this book
-
Their wordsMeek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given; forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books.
↗Miscellanies: Nature, Addresses, and Lectures (Phillips, Sampson, 1856)gutenberg.org All 8 from this book