num_pages: 96
description: Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson. "Self-Reliance" is an 1841 essay written by American transcendentalist philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes: the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow their own instincts and ideas. It is the source of one of Emerson's most famous quotations: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." This essay is an analysis into the nature of the "aboriginal self on which a universal reliance may be grounded." "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."
language: English
title: Self Reliance
titlecomplete: Self Reliance
genres: Essays, Classics, Philosophy, Self Help, Personal Development, American, Psychology, Nonfiction, Literature, School
ratings_count: 8908
publisher: Funk & Wagnalls Co