Write in your heart

by Ralph Waldo Emerson


Write it on your heart

that every day is the best day in the year.

No man has learned anything rightly until he knows

that every day is a doomsday.

Today is a king in disguise.

Today always looks mean to the thoughtless,

in the face of a uniform experience

that all good and great and happy actions

are made up precisely of these blank todays.

Let us not be so deceived;

let us unmask the king as he passes!

He only is rich who owns the day,

and no one owns the day

who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.

You have done what you could.

Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in;

forget them as soon as you can.

Tomorrow is a new day;

begin it well and serenely and with too high a

spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This day is all but is good and fair.

It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations,

to waste a moment on the yesterdays...