The exact words
Who really wrote it
The sentence is everywhere: on graduation cards, retirement plaques, gym walls and tattoos, nearly always signed “Ralph Waldo Emerson.” It does sound like him. Emerson’s essays, especially Self-Reliance, are all about trusting the voice inside you over tradition and the opinions of others. But the words were written by someone else, almost sixty years after Emerson died.
They come from Meditations in Wall Street, a small book of reflections published by William Morrow in 1940. The book appeared without an author’s name, with an introduction by the essayist Albert Jay Nock, and reviewers in Barron’s and the New York Times puzzled over who had written it. In 1947 the Times named him: Henry Stanley Haskins, a former Wall Street trader with a colorful past, who had been effectively expelled from the Stock Exchange in 1910 after a trading pool he led collapsed. His book is full of short, quotable thoughts on money, character and living well, and this is the one that escaped.
How it became Emerson’s
Haskins was unknown, and Emerson was the most famous American writer on exactly this theme, so the line slowly drifted to the bigger name. Researchers have searched Emerson’s published works, journals and lectures and found nothing like it. Because the misattribution is so common, it is also one of the easiest ways for a careful reader to spot a speech that was copied from a quote website.
What it means
The idea is that your past mistakes and your future worries matter less than your character: the values, courage and resourcefulness you carry with you. It is a hopeful line, which is why it works at turning points like graduations, retirements and funerals. Crediting Haskins costs you nothing and adds a good story: a disgraced Wall Street trader who wrote one of the most-shared lines about what really matters.
What people get wrong
A famous line from Ralph Waldo Emerson.
A line from Henry Stanley Haskins's 1940 book Meditations in Wall Street, written almost sixty years after Emerson's death.
Timeline
- 1882Ralph Waldo Emerson dies. Nothing like the line has been found in his essays, journals or lectures.
- 1940Meditations in Wall Street, a book of short reflections by an anonymous author, is published by William Morrow with an introduction by the writer Albert Jay Nock. The line is in it.
- 1947The New York Times identifies the author as Henry S. Haskins, a former Wall Street securities trader.
- Later 20th centuryThe line begins to appear credited to Emerson, whose essays on self-reliance and inner life it seems to echo.
Use it in a speech
Questions people ask
Did Ralph Waldo Emerson say “What lies behind us and what lies before us”?
No. The line was written by Henry Stanley Haskins in his 1940 book Meditations in Wall Street. Emerson died in 1882.
Who was Henry Stanley Haskins?
A former New York securities trader, expelled from the Stock Exchange after a 1910 pool collapse, who published a book of short reflections anonymously in 1940. The New York Times named him as the author in 1947.
Why is it credited to Emerson?
It sounds like Emerson, whose essays praise self-reliance and the inner life, and a famous name makes a line easier to share.
How should I credit it?
Credit Henry Stanley Haskins, Meditations in Wall Street (1940). If you want to mention Emerson, say it is often misattributed to him.
Cite this quote
Don't cite this line as Ralph Waldo Emerson's words. There is no reliable source showing they said it. The real source is Henry Stanley Haskins, Meditations in Wall Street, so cite that instead. If you need to mention it, say it is “often attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson” and, if you want a reference, cite this page: