"I have no hostility to nature, but a child's love to it. I expand and live in the warm day like corn and melons."

Family

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Insight & Reflection

This reflection on family by Ralph Waldo Emerson resonates across generations. It highlights a fundamental truth about human nature: our continuous search for meaning in family is what ultimately defines our character and our path forward.

About Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson, who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and critical thinking, as well as a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society and conformity. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche thought he was "the most gifted of the Americans", and Walt Whitman called Emerson his "master".

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Editorial Note: This quote is curated and fact-checked by the Quotes Archive Editorial Team. Verified Literature Specialist.

More by Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It is a subtle truth that true innovation is born when curiosity dares to question long-settled assumptions — an essential principle for the reflective life."

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More about Family

"And I say the sacred hoop of my people was one of the many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father."

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"AP promoted me to the White House beat because I knew Clinton, his family, friends, and staff better than anybody in the national press corps. Those contacts helped me break a few stories and get my career in Washington jump-started."

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