“If a man has good corn or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.”
Ralph waldo Emerson, (1803-1882). Journal, 1855.
Must I be the peddler of my own wares,
Chasing the masses down that slippery slope
And begging them in their native Marketese
To want what they do not, but should?
This hardly seems the vision of Emerson―
Better mousetrap that it would become―
And I still sound like Manilow’s One Voice,
But before the harmony starts.
And I have most certainly built it―
Several times, actually―
Yet they most certainly have not come.
Even so, I will not follow the Sirens
To their market, nor cast my soul
Into that pit, as if I had not already
Been poor-and-vexed enough back home.
I will stay in the wilderness
And continue as before,
Undiscovered as I may remain,
And eating as I may manage.
I can most certainly hear
That they are not listening,
And do not need them
To tell me so.
Emerson improved this journal entry seven years after his death, to the following:
“Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door”
Ralph Waldo Emerson. (1803-1882). Journal, 1889. (Wikipedia)
