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Who really said it

Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can

Written by Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803–1882 · American essayist, lecturer & leader of Transcendentalism
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These really are Emerson’s words, from a letter to one of his daughters away at school — printed in his authorised biographer James Elliot Cabot’s A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. II (Riverside Press, 1887), chapter XIII, p. 489, where the passage is confirmed verbatim in the scanned first edition. Quote Investigator dates the manuscript letter to 8 April 1854 and names the recipient as his daughter Ellen; note that the wording everyone shares is a condensation, with one sentence dropped from the middle.

Last verified 29 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can” Ralph Waldo Emerson, letter to his daughter Ellen, 8 April 1854; printed in James Elliot Cabot, “A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson,” vol. 2 (Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1887), 489. The widely shared version is a condensation that drops one sentence. Verbatim: “Finish every day and be done with it. For manners and for wise living it is a vice to remember. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. To-morrow is a new day; you shall begin it well and serenely, and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day for all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the rotten yesterdays.”

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In context

Evoking the world of Ralph Waldo Emerson — American essayist, lecturer & leader of Transcendentalism. Theme: "Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Printed in
A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. II
Passage
Chapter XIII, p. 489 — Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1887
Written
Letter to his daughter Ellen, dated 8 April 1854 by Quote Investigator
Wording
Condensed in circulation — one sentence dropped from the middle

To one of his daughters who was away from home, at school, he writes: — “Finish every day and be done with it. For manners and for wise living it is a vice to remember. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. To-morrow is a new day; you shall begin it well and serenely, and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day for all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the rotten yesterdays.” Cabot, 1887 — p. 489

Cabot prints the letter without naming the daughter or giving a date. The widely quoted form drops the second sentence, “For manners and for wise living it is a vice to remember,” and turns the semicolon after “could” into a full stop.

Scanned 1887 first edition
Cabot's Memoir, vol. II (1887) at the Internet Archive
Read the passage in Cabot's Memoir, vol. II (1887)

How the line travelled

  • 8 April 1854 — Emerson writes to his daughter Ellen, away at school. Quote Investigator ↗ gives that date and recipient, and transcribes the rough manuscript wording from the Columbia University Press six-volume collection of the letters (1939), vol. 4, pp. 438–439: “You must finish a term & finish every day, & be done with it.”
  • 1887 — James Elliot Cabot, Emerson’s literary executor and family-approved biographer, prints a smoothed and fully punctuated version in A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. II ↗, chapter XIII, p. 489, introducing it only as a letter “to one of his daughters who was away from home, at school.” This is the text later anthologies copy.
  • 1943–1982 — anthologists trim and reshape it. The Thesaurus of Epigrams (1943) prints the shortened three-sentence form that circulates today, and Dale Carnegie’s Scrapbook (1959) changes the opening to “Finish each day” — the variant chain is laid out by Quote Investigator ↗.
  • Today — the passage is absent from Wikiquote’s Emerson page ↗ in every section, sourced and disputed alike, so the provenance runs through Cabot and Rusk rather than the usual quote listings.
Public domain

The wording shown here follows James Elliot Cabot’s A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, published in 1887 and long in the public domain in the United States; Emerson himself died in 1882 and wrote the letter in 1854. The rougher manuscript wording quoted in the trail comes from Ralph L. Rusk’s 1939 edition of the letters, a later edited work — the sentences on this page are the 1887 text.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What gets it wrong

The name on this one is right — Emerson really wrote it. What has drifted is the wording, and the fact that almost nobody can say where it comes from.

Anthologists, from 1943 onward Condensed

The trimmed version in circulation drops Cabot’s second sentence, “For manners and for wise living it is a vice to remember,” and turns the semicolon after “you could” into a full stop. Quote Investigator ↗ traces that exact trimmed form to the 1943 Thesaurus of Epigrams.

“Finish each day and be done with it” Variant

A widely circulated version swaps “every” for “each.” Quote Investigator ↗ finds that change in Dale Carnegie’s Scrapbook (1959) and again in Leonard Safir and William Safire’s Good Advice (1982). The 1887 text reads “every.”

Quoted with no source at all Unsourced

Cabot printed the letter in 1887 without naming the recipient or giving a date, and the passage does not appear on Wikiquote’s Emerson page ↗ in any section — so the usual online copies cite nothing checkable. The date and the daughter’s name come from Quote Investigator ↗, working from Rusk’s 1939 edition of the letters.

Emerson wrote it, in a letter to his daughter Ellen dated 8 April 1854 by Quote Investigator ↗; the familiar wording is James Elliot Cabot’s 1887 tidy-up of the manuscript, verifiable at page 489 of volume II of his Memoir ↗, later trimmed by anthologists.

Context

Why it mattered

Cabot sets this letter inside a chapter on Emerson’s ways with his children, as evidence that from “thirteen or fourteen” he did not hesitate to inculcate in them the whole of his own doctrine of self-reliance. The advice itself is not lofty at all: stop replaying the day’s embarrassments, because dwelling on them is a bad habit rather than a virtue.

That is also why the sentence anthologists keep cutting is the one worth keeping. “For manners and for wise living it is a vice to remember” is the actual argument; the rest is the consolation. Lose it and a father’s reasoning becomes a fridge magnet.

For manners and for wise living it is a vice to remember.

How the wording got smoothed

Emerson dashed the letter off with ampersands and almost no punctuation. Quote Investigator ↗ transcribes the manuscript text from the Columbia University Press six-volume collection of Emerson’s letters (1939), vol. 4, pp. 438–439, and it opens quite differently: “You must finish a term & finish every day, & be done with it.”

Cabot, who was Emerson’s literary executor and family-approved biographer, printed a tidied version in 1887 — adding the semicolons and full stops that make the passage quotable. The anthology versions Quote Investigator traces all descend from Cabot, not the manuscript.

One small provenance oddity: Cabot placed the letter in a chapter he opens by describing “the period from 1835 to 1845,” even though the letter dates from 1854. He grouped it by theme rather than by date, and gave neither the date nor the daughter’s name — which is why the citation trail had to wait for Rusk.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

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Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: Finish Every Day and Be Done With Itquoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation. Credits Emerson, dates the letter 8 April 1854 to his daughter Ellen, and traces the wording through Cabot (1887), Thesaurus of Epigrams (1943), Dale Carnegie's Scrapbook (1959) and Good Advice (1982).
Cabot, A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. II (1887)archive.org

Scanned 1887 Riverside Press first edition. The passage appears in chapter XIII at page 489, introduced as a letter to one of his daughters away at school.
Cabot Memoir vol. II — second scanned copyarchive.org

An independent scan of the same volume, useful for checking the 1887 punctuation against another copy; the passage is again at page 489.
Wikiquote: Ralph Waldo Emersonen.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote's Emerson page. Worth knowing that this passage is not listed there at all — neither among the sourced quotations nor among the disputed or misattributed ones.
Emerson's works, free and full-textgutenberg.org

Project Gutenberg's public-domain Emerson editions — Essays (First and Second Series), Nature, Poems, The Conduct of Life, English Traits, Letters and Social Aims — for searching his published prose.
Ralph Waldo Emersonen.wikipedia.org

Biographical background: born 25 May 1803, died 27 April 1882; essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister and poet who led Transcendentalism and had four children, Waldo, Ellen, Edith and Edward.

The author

About Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1803–1882 · American essayist, lecturer & leader of Transcendentalism

Emerson (born 25 May 1803, died 27 April 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, poet and former minister who led the Transcendentalist movement, formulating its philosophy in his 1836 essay Nature. Much of his living came from the lecture circuit, and his biographer placed this letter in a chapter on his ways with his children — where Emerson is shown teaching them, from the age of “thirteen or fourteen,” the whole of his own doctrine of self-reliance. He had four children: Waldo, Ellen, Edith and Edward.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

James Elliot Cabot, A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Printed at the Riverside Press, 1887), 489, printing Emerson's letter to a daughter away at school. Quote Investigator dates the manuscript letter to 8 April 1854, addressed to his daughter Ellen, and locates it in The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. Ralph L. Rusk (Columbia University Press, 1939), 4:438–439.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can’?” Last verified 29 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/finish-every-day-and-be-done-with-it-you-have-done-what-you/

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