Humble, brilliant, and free-thinking, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was born on this day in Boston, Massachusetts. Though his family was poor, they found riches in books and ideas.

A philosopher and writer, Emerson believed redemption could be found in one’s own soul and the heart of intuition. “If the single man plants himself indomitably on his instincts,” he said, “this huge world will come around to him.”

In college, he began lifelong journals he called “Wide World,” brimming with quotes and insight. He later became a Unitarian minister but left after the death of his wife and disagreements with church doctrine.

Drawn to Transcendentalism, Emerson joined forces with thinkers like Thoreau and Carlyle. He urged each person to seek their own path and wrote, “Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view.”

His essays Nature and Self-Reliance inspired generations. He believed in the power and truth of self-examination and the unending beauty of nature and mankind.

“Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other,” he observed. Life, with its joy, loss, and quiet grace, held infinite wisdom for those willing to look and reflect.

“A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us,” Emerson wrote, reminding us to value the minds and hearts we meet along our journey.