On the Open Road

Ralph Waldo Trine (1866–1958) was one of the early teachers of the New Thought philosophy which grew in America from the Transcendentalist philosophy of Emerson and Thoreau. New Thought is actually the most ancient thought. It is the power of thought in the individual and our ability to tune in to the source of all power and inspiration, Infinite Spirit. It is based upon no fixed creed, but relies on the perpetual renewal of thought in the individual as it ultimately relates to the whole.


On the Open Road is a set of sixteen thoughts on how to live life. They are “To be observed to-day, to be changed to-morrow, or abandoned, according to to-morrow’s light.”


Excerpt: In brief—to be honest, to be fearless, to be just, joyous, kind. This will make our part in life’s great and as yet not fully understood play one of greatest glory, and we need then stand in fear of nothing—life nor death; for death is life. Or rather, it is the quick transition to life in another form; the putting off of the old coat and the putting on of the new; a passing not from light to darkness, but from light to light according as we have lived here; a taking up of life in another form where we leave it off here; a part in life not to be shunned or dreaded or feared, but to be welcomed with a glad and ready smile when it comes in its own good way and time.