Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
He that rides his hobby gently must always give way to him that rides his hobby hard.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Power." The Conduct of Life, Ticknor and Fields, 1860, p. 57.
This is one of the great statements in all political history. The nation was in a mess from the Great Depression, few had any hope, and Roosevelt had replaced a President who maintained that the Federal government could not do much about these business cycles. Roosevelt did not have all the answers and of the ones he had, he was not sure they would all be effective. So in two short sentences he conveyed the fact that he will try different things, not all necessarily successful, but a steely determination and commitment to get the job done. And that is just what happened.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.
