Quote of the Day by Ralph Waldo EmersonEmerson and the Philosophy of IndividualismQuote of the Day“The only person a man or a woman is destined to become is the person they decide to be”Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of the most influential American thinkers, essayists and philosophers of the 19th century. In 1832 Emerson resigned his pastorate, after the death of his first wife and his growing differences with traditional religious practice. Both might offer people an escape from the limitations of convention.One of the most famous ideas of Emerson is self-reliance. If something had been accepted because it always had been accepted, Emerson thought that was not necessarily a good enough reason to keep believing it. Its leading philosophical exponent is generally considered to be Emerson, with Henry David Thoreau not far behind.For Emerson, nature was a very special thing.