Today in History: May 25th - Ralph Waldo Emerson

'There 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;…The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.' Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self Reliance,"  Essays, First Series, 1841.

Essayist, philosopher, and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston on May 25, 1803. Son and grandson of Protestant divines, Emerson attended Harvard College and Harvard Divinity School, entering the Unitarian ministry in 1829.  Read more about Emerson at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/today.html