A copper tuning fork suspended above a copper bowl of turquoise water with circular ripples against a pale background.

Original artwork, not a still

Essays, 'Character,' 1844

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The passage gives meeting a startling mind the importance of a major life event. Intellectual surprise becomes something worth remembering as a particular day. One reading values encounters that unsettle familiar ways of thinking, treating another person's mind as a powerful experience.

Context reviewed

Share this quote