Society and Solitude Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson: Context & Meanings

“Self-trust is the first secret of success.”

Emerson treats successful action as beginning with confidence that one has a real task and capacity of one's own, before public recognition or visible achievement arrives.

Source note: Society and Solitude, essay “Success”; Project Gutenberg #69258. Emerson immediately explains self-trust as believing that one is here “for cause” or for a task fitted to one's constitution, while warning that it does not mean rushing into a showy feat for spectators.

“The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.”

A home gains much of its warmth and value from the people welcomed into it, not merely from possessions, decoration, or physical comfort.

Source note: Society and Solitude, “Domestic Life”; Emerson places friendship and the arrival of new people at the center of a lively and meaningful household.