Quote of the Day February 13, 2023 Richard Walsh "Be an opener of doors." Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson, who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He remains among the linchpins of the American romantic movement, and his work has greatly influenced the thinkers, writers and poets that followed him.