“It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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.
“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“It was for beauty that the world was made.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops—no, but the kind of man the country turns out.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary sourceMore quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson →
“An hundred thieves cannot strip one naked man, especially if his skin’s off.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“Let him think I am more man than I am and I will be so.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“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 Primary source“To be great is to be misunderstood.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary sourceSelf-reliance Self-awareness Self-confidence