“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.”
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.
“The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“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 Primary source“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary sourceMore 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 Primary source“Life is our dictionary.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“Let him think I am more man than I am and I will be so.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It’s their mistake, not my failing.”
— Richard Feynman Primary source