Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society. Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, Nature. His speech entitled The American Scholar in 1837, was described by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. as America’s “Intellectual Declaration of Independence”.

Wherever we go, whatever we do, self is the sole subject we study and learn.


Further Reading:
Walt Whitman on Know Thyself
Hermann Hesse on Know Thyself
George Sand on Know Thyself