Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Mediocrity

• The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man's.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Music, Men, Mediocrity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1993). “Self-reliance, and Other Essays”, p.114, Courier Corporation

• Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Friendship, Inspiration, Solitude

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.83, Harvard University Press

• Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius, the stern friend, the cold, obscure shelter where moult the wings which will bear it farther than suns and stars.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Stars, Wings, Solitude

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.83, Harvard University Press

• The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Mediocrity, Hopeless, Doom

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Portable Emerson”, p.72, Penguin

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