If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse-trap, than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.
ATTRIBUTION:
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. Attributed.
Ascribed to Emerson by Sarah Yule in the anthology Borrowings (1889), later said by her to originate in a lecture given by Emerson in 1871. A similar passage appears in Emerson’s Journals (1909-1914), which provided material for many of his lectures and writings. The remark’s authorship was also claimed by Elbert Hubbard in A Thousand and One Epigrams (1911). In The Worst Years of Our Lives, “The Cult of Busyness” (1991), Barbara Ehrenreich wrote: “Anyone who has invented a better mousetrap, or the contemporary equivalent, can expect to be harassed by strangers demanding that you read their unpublished manuscripts or undergo the humiliation of public speaking, usually on remote Midwestern campuses.”
