Life Is a Journey | life is a journey
RalphWaldoEmerson?LynnH.Hough?Aerosmith?Anonymous?DearQuoteInvestigator:RalphWaldoEmersonisoftencreditedwiththefollowing:Lifeisajourney,notadestination.I’vesearchedtheRWE.orgdatabasewithoutluckanddidatextsearchthroughover1100pagesofhisessays. Ibelievethisisamisattribution.Anyinsightyouhaveintothelineageofthisquotewouldbemuchappreciated.QuoteInvestigator:QIbelievesthatanexactmatchfortheexpressionabovehasnotbeenfoundintheoeuvreofRalphWaldoEmerson.Yet,Emersondidwriteathematicallyrelatedremark[R...
Ralph Waldo Emerson? Lynn H. Hough? Aerosmith? Anonymous?
Dear Quote Investigator: Ralph Waldo Emerson is often credited with the following:
Life is a journey, not a destination.
I’ve searched the RWE.org database without luck and did a text search through over 1100 pages of his essays. I believe this is a misattribution. Any insight you have into the lineage of this quote would be much appreciated.
Quote Investigator: QI believes that an exact match for the expression above has not been found in the oeuvre of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Yet, Emerson did write a thematically related remark [RWEJ]:
To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.
This sentence suggested a psychological vantage point in which the intermediate advances of the journey were representative of the completion of the journey. This is arguably a distinct statement from the questioner’s saying ...