“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.
“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 →
“I think a life properly lived is just learn, learn, learn all the time.”
— Charlie Munger Primary source“What is the hardest task in the world? To think.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“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“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