Self-Reliance

By Ralph Waldo Emerson

Self-Reliance is an 1841 essay written by American transcendentalist philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains a stirring call for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and to follow their own instincts and ideas. It contains one of Emerson's most famous quotations: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. The essay, possibly Emerson's most famous, is an analysis into the nature of the aboriginal self on which a universal reliance may be grounded. It was first published in his 1841 collection, Essays: First Series. Emerson helped start the beginning of the Transcendentalist movement in America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dreamscape Media
• Release date: Aug 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781974995073

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Born in 1803, RALPH WALDO EMERSON became one of the founders of the transcendentalist movement and one of America’s most beloved thinkers. His 1836 essay, “Nature” became a key exploration of the ideas of transcendentalism that would inform the work of contemporaries like Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller. Throughout his life, Emerson wrote essays and poems and delivered numerous lectures developing his ideas and critiquing the mores of his time.

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SELF-RELIANCE

By

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

This edition published by Dreamscape Media LLC, 2017

www.dreamscapeab.com * [e-mail]

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About Ralph Waldo Emerson:

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.

Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of transcendentalism in his 1836 essay Nature. Following this work, he gave a speech entitled The American Scholar in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. considered to be America's intellectual Declaration of Independence.

Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first and then revised them for print. His first two collections of essays, Essays: First Series (1841) and Essays: Second Series (1844), represent the core of his thinking. They include the well-known essays Self-Reliance, The Over-Soul, Circles, The Poet and Experience. Together with Nature, these essays made the decade from the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s Emerson's most fertile period.

Emerson wrote on a number of subjects, never espousing fixed philosophical tenets, but developing certain ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for mankind to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Emerson's nature was more philosophical than naturalistic: Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Emerson is one of several figures who took a more pantheist or pandeist approach by rejecting views of God as separate from the world.

He remains among the linchpins of the American romantic movement, and his work has greatly influenced the thinkers, writers and poets that followed him. When asked to sum up his work, he said his central doctrine was the infinitude of the private man. Emerson is also well known as a mentor and friend of Henry David Thoreau, a fellow transcendentalist.

Source: Wikipedia

Self-Reliance

Ne te quæsiveris extra.¹⁴⁵

"Man is his own star; and the soul that can

Render an honest and a perfect man,

Commands all light, all influence, all fate;

Nothing to him falls early or too late.

Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,

Our fatal shadows that walk by us still."¹⁴⁶

---

Cast the bantling on the rocks,

Suckle him with the she-wolf's teat;

Wintered with the hawk and fox,

Power and speed be hands and feet.¹⁴⁷

I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instill is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,—that is genius.¹⁴⁸ Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense;¹⁴⁹ for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,—and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato,¹⁵⁰ and Milton¹⁵¹ is, that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts:¹⁵² they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most

Reviews for Self-Reliance

[aaron_perdue_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The only self help book you will ever need to read

[Robin Mo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Every young man should read this essay. It is pure wisdom that will give you clarity and courage to begin trusting youself.

[Psicocabra · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I don't understand why people like to read shallow opinions. Emerson has disappointed me by not teaching me anything at all.

Well, people also like to watch videos of people with shallow opinions. (Translated from Spanish)

[buffalogr · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This short read/listen is a collection of thoughts published by the author. It it urges readers to trust your gut feeling, rather than follow the herd. It was a difficult listen because of it's English construction dates from it's birth in 1841;also, it seemed like a stream of consciousness.