Muriel Strode
“I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail.”
“Wind-Wafted Wild Flowers,” Open Court, 1903
Documented source
Source
Muriel Strode, “Wind-Wafted Wild Flowers,” Open Court magazine (1903)
Misattributed to
Ralph Waldo Emerson — no Emerson source exists
Correct attribution
Muriel Strode — published 1903, a century before the internet gave it to Emerson
Every quote here is traced to a documented source. How we verify →
Attribution note: This line circulates under Emerson’s name. It is not Emerson’s. The author is Muriel Strode — published in Open Court magazine, 1903.
About this line
Muriel Strode published this in a 1903 poem, and for a hundred years it traveled under Ralph Waldo Emerson’s name. It’s hers. Restoring the credit is the whole point of the page.
Why we carry this line
Handing the quote back to the woman who wrote it is the entire reason it’s here.
Related Lines
“Your own mind is a sacred enclosure into which nothing harmful can enter except by your permission.”
Arnold Bennett · The Human Machine, 1908 (not Emerson)
Explore this line
“To be great is to be misunderstood.”
Emerson · Self-Reliance, 1841
Explore this line
More from this author
Muriel Strode →