Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
If we live truly, we shall see truly.
These notes were created during my reading process to aid in my own understanding and were not written for the purpose of instruction or summarization. With that said, I get super excited to discuss ideas contained within, but rarely (read never) do I encounter anyone reading the same stuff. I’ve decided to share these unedited notes on the off chance they attract a shared excitement to discuss or are perhaps helpful to other readers. Feel free to ask questions and interact. Enjoy!
Opinion
I’m glad for this to have found me at what feels like an appropriate time in life. Emerson’s ideas are inspiring and a must-read for anyone pursuing creative work. In particular, I appreciate how Emerson defines genius.
I also appreciate his views on striving earnestly…
What I’m stealing
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Dog ears, highlights, marginalia
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. (Page 18)
A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firma ment 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; 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 when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another. (Page 19)
no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. (Page 19)
The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs. (Page 20)
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. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. 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. (Page 22)
I have difficulty detect the precise man you are: and of course so much force is withdrawn from your proper life. But do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. A man must consider what a blindman's-buff is this game of conformity. If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument. (Page 22)
With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and to-morrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day-'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.'-Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. (Page 23)
Your genuine action will explain itself and will explain your other genuine actions.
Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future. (Page 24)
Honor is venerable to us because it is no ephemera. It is always ancient virtue. We worship it to-day because it is not of to-day. We love it and pay it homage because it is not a trap for our love and homage, but is self-dependent, selfderived, and therefore of an old immaculate pedigree, even if shown in a young person.
I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and consistency.
Let the words be gazetted and ridiculous henceforward. Instead of the gong for dinner, let us hear a whistle from the Spartan fife. Let us never bow and apologize more. A great man is coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to please him; I wish that he should wish to please me. I will stand here for humanity and though I would make it kind, I would make it true. Let us affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and hurl in the face of custom and trade and office, the fact which is the upshot of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and Actor working wher ever a man works; that a true man belongs to no other time or place, but is the centre of things. (Page 24)
Kingdom and lordship, power and estate, are a gaudier vocabulary than private John and Edward in a small house and common day's work; but the things of life are the same to both; the sum total of both is the same (Page 25)
When private men shall act with original views, the lustre will be transferred from the actions of kings to those of gentlemen (Page 25)
If we live truly, we shall see truly. (Page 27)
The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act. "What we love that we have, but by desire we bereave ourselves of the love." (Page 29)
and if we follow the truth it will bring us out safe at last. (Page 30)
A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always like a cat falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not 'studying a profession, for he does not postpone his life, but lives already. (Page 31)
and that the moment he acts from himself, tossing the laws the books, idolatries and customs out of the window, we pity him no more bu thank and revere him; and that teacher shall restore the life of man t splendor and make his name dear to all history. (Page 31)
Insist on yourself; never imitate. (Page 34)
Every great man is a unique (Page 34)
What a contrast between the well-clad, reading, writing, thinking American, with a watch, a pencil and a bill of exchange in his pocket, and the naked New Zealander, whose property is a club, a spear, a mat and an undivided twentieth of a shed to sleep under! But compare the health of the two men and you shall see that the white man has lost his aboriginal strength. If the traveller tell us truly, strike the savage with a broad axe and in a day or two the flesh shall unite and heal as if you struck the blow into soft pitch, and the same blow shall send the white to his grave. (Page 34)
It is curious to see the periodical disuse and perishing of means and machinery which were introduced with loud laudation a few years or centuries before. The great genius returns to essential man. (Page 35)
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles. (Page 36)