“There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (verified)
Self-Reliance (Primary source)
Perhaps Emerson’s most famous essay, Self-Reliance passionately urges individuals to trust their own instincts and intuitions rather than conforming to societal pressures or external authorities. It champions nonconformity, self-trust, and the power of the individual. Its famous opening line, Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string, encapsulates its core message.
“The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (verified)“In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (verified)“The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power: but they who do not the thing have not the power.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (verified)“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (verified)More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson →
“Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.”
— Ernest Hemingway (verified)“Truth was the only daughter of Time.”
— Leonardo da Vinci (verified)“You may delay, but time will not.”
— Benjamin Franklin (verified)“If you have time don’t wait for time.”
— Benjamin Franklin (verified)