KirkLindstrom.com - Quotes - "Success" from the book Heart Throbs
Kirk
                Windsurfing at Palo Alto in SF Bay in May 2009
 "Success"
  
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Joseph Mitchell Chapple
Kirk
                Windsurfing at Coyote Point November 2009
 
 
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This inspirational passage is often wrongly attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson.1

This is the most common form:

"To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one’s self; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived—this is to have succeeded."
 
In her 17 November 1990 column, “Dear Abby” (Abigail Van Buren) wrongly attributed the quote to Emerson.   In Feb. 1992 she printed a retraction with what she thought was the original quote:
"He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much; who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who has left the world better than he found it, whether an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had; whose life was an inspiration; whose memory a benediction."
The article I link to from the Emerson Society says the original should be attributed to an anonymous submission for a contest for a book titled Heart Throbs by Joe Mitchell Chapple.


Success


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Note 1.  Source: Emerson Society
 
 

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