what type of essay is self reliance

A Summary and Analysis of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ‘Self-Reliance’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Self-Reliance’ is an influential 1841 essay by the American writer and thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82). In this essay, Emerson argues that we should get to know our true selves rather than looking to other people to fashion our individual thoughts and ideas for us. Among other things, Emerson’s essay is a powerful rallying cry against the lure of conformity and groupthink.

Emerson prefaces his essay with several epigraphs, the first of which is a Latin phrase which translates as: ‘Do not seek yourself outside yourself.’ This axiom summarises the thrust of Emerson’s argument, which concerns the cultivation of one’s own opinions and thoughts, even if they are at odds with those of the people around us (including family members).

This explains the title of his essay: ‘Self-Reliance’ is about relying on one’s own sense of oneself, and having confidence in one’s ideas and opinions. In a famous quotation, Emerson asserts: ‘In every work of genius we recognise our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.’

But if we reject those thoughts when they come to us, we must suffer the pangs of envy of seeing the same thoughts we had (or began to have) in works of art produced by the greatest minds. This is a bit like the phenomenon known as ‘I wish I’d thought of that!’, only, Emerson argues, we did think of it, or something similar. But we never followed through on those thoughts because we weren’t interested in examining or developing our own ideas that we have all the time.

In ‘Self-Reliance’, then, Emerson wants us to cultivate our own minds rather than looking to others to dictate our minds for us. ‘Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind,’ he argues. For Emerson, our own minds are even more worthy of respect than actual religion.

Knowing our own minds is far more valuable and important than simply letting our minds be swayed or influenced by other people. ‘It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion’, Emerson argues, and ‘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.’

In other words, most people are weak and think they know themselves, but can easily abandon all of their principles and beliefs and be swept up by the ideas of the mob. But the great man is the one who can hold to his own principles and ideas even when he is the one in the minority .

Emerson continues to explore this theme of conformity:

A man must consider what a blindman’s-buff is this game of conformity. If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument. I hear a preacher announce for his text and topic the expediency of one of the institutions of his church. Do I not know beforehand that not possibly can he say a new and spontaneous word? Do I not know that, with all this ostentation of examining the grounds of the institution, he will do no such thing? Do I not know that he is pledged to himself not to look but at one side, – the permitted side, not as a man, but as a parish minister?

He goes on:

This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, and we know not where to begin to set them right.

Emerson then argues that consistency for its own sake is a foolish idea. He declares, in a famous quotation, ‘A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.’

Instead, great men change and refine their opinions from one day to the next, as new evidence or new ideas come to light. Although this inconsistency may lead us to be misunderstood, Emerson thinks there are worse things to be. After all, great thinkers such as Pythagoras, Socrates, and even Jesus were all misunderstood by some people.

Emerson also argues that, just because we belong to the same social group as other people, this doesn’t mean we have to follow the same opinions. In a memorable image, he asserts that he likes ‘the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching’: that moment when everyone can have their own individual thoughts, before they are brought together by the priest and are told to believe the same thing.

Similarly, just because we share blood with our relatives, that doesn’t mean we have to believe what other family members believe. Rather than following their ‘customs’, ‘petulance’, or ‘folly’, we must be ourselves first and foremost.

The same is true of travel. We may say that ‘travel broadens the mind’, but for Emerson, if we do not have a sense of ourselves before he pack our bags and head off to new places, we will still be the same foolish person when we arrive at our destination:

Travelling is a fool’s paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.

Emerson concludes ‘Self-Reliance’ by urging his readers, ‘Insist on yourself; never imitate.’ If you borrow ‘the adopted talent’ of someone else, you will only ever be in ‘half possession’ of it, whereas you will be able to wield your own ‘gift’ if you take the time and effort to cultivate and develop it.

Although some aspects of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s argument in ‘Self-Reliance’ may strike us as self-evident or mere common sense, he does take issue with several established views on the self in the course of his essay. For example, although it is often argued that travel broadens the mind, to Emerson our travels mean nothing if we have not prepared our own minds to respond appropriately to what we see.

And although many people might argue that consistency is important in one’s thoughts and opinions, Emerson argues the opposite, asserting that it is right and proper to change our opinions from one day to the next, if that is what our hearts and minds dictate.

Similarly, Emerson also implies, at one point in ‘Self-Reliance’, that listening to one’s own thoughts should take precedence over listening to the preacher in church.

It is not that he did not believe Christian teachings to be valuable, but that such preachments would have less impact on us if we do not take the effort to know our own minds first. We need to locate who we truly are inside ourselves first, before we can adequately respond to the world around us.

In these and several other respects, ‘Self-Reliance’ remains as relevant to our own age as it was to Emerson’s original readers in the 1840s. Indeed, perhaps it is even more so in the age of social media, in which young people take selfies of their travels but have little sense of what those places and landmarks really mean to them.

Similarly, Emerson’s argument against conformity may strike us as eerily pertinent to the era of social media, with its echo chambers and cultivation of a hive mind or herd mentality.

In the last analysis, ‘Self-Reliance’ comes down to trust in oneself as much as it does reliance on oneself. Emerson thinks we should trust the authority of our own thoughts, opinions, and beliefs over the beliefs of the herd.

Of course, one can counter such a statement by pointing out that Emerson is not pig-headedly defending the right of the individual to be loudly and volubly wrong. We should still seek out the opinions of others in order to sharpen and test our own. But it is important that we are first capable of having our own thoughts. Before we go out into the world we must know ourselves , and our own minds. The two-word axiom which was written at the site of the Delphic Oracle in ancient Greece had it right: ‘Know Thyself.’

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• Emerson's Essays

Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Literature Notes
• About Self-Reliance
• Ralph Waldo Emerson Biography
• Summary and Analysis of Nature
• About Nature
• Introduction
• Summary and Analysis of The American Scholar
• About The American Scholar
• Paragraphs 1-7
• Paragraphs 8-9
• Paragraphs 10-20
• Paragraphs 21-30
• Paragraphs 31-45
• Summary and Analysis of The Over-Soul
• About The Over-Soul
• Paragraphs 1-3
• Paragraphs 4-10
• Paragraphs 11-15
• Paragraphs 16-21
• Paragraphs 22-30
• Summary and Analysis of Self-Reliance
• Paragraphs 1-17
• Paragraphs 18-32
• Paragraphs 33-50
• Summary and Analysis of The Transcendentalist
• About The Transcendentalist
• Paragraphs 1-5
• Paragraphs 6-14
• Paragraphs 15-30
• Summary and Analysis of The Poet
• About The Poet
• Paragraphs 1-9
• Paragraphs 10-18
• Paragraphs 19-29
• Paragraphs 30-33
• Critical Essays
• Understanding Transcendentalism
• Emerson Unitarianism, and the God Within
• Emerson's Use of Metaphor
• Full Glossary for Emerson's Essays
• Essay Questions
• Cite this Literature Note

Summary and Analysis of Self-Reliance About Self-Reliance

Published first in 1841 in Essays and then in the 1847 revised edition of Essays , "Self-Reliance" took shape over a long period of time. Throughout his life, Emerson kept detailed journals of his thoughts and actions, and he returned to them as a source for many of his essays. Such is the case with "Self-Reliance," which includes materials from journal entries dating as far back as 1832. In addition to his journals, Emerson drew on various lectures he delivered between 1836 and 1839.

The first edition of the essay bore three epigraphs: a Latin line, meaning "Do not seek outside yourself"; a six-line stanza from Beaumont and Fletcher's Honest Man's Fortune ; and a four-line stanza that Emerson himself wrote. Emerson dropped his stanza from the revised edition of the essay, but modern editors have since restored it. All three epigraphs stress the necessity of relying on oneself for knowledge and guidance.

The essay has three major divisions: the importance of self-reliance (paragraphs 1-17), self-reliance and the individual (paragraphs 18-32), and self-reliance and society (paragraphs 33-50). As a whole, it promotes self-reliance as an ideal, even a virtue, and contrasts it with various modes of dependence or conformity.

Because the essay does not have internally marked divisions delineating its three major sections, readers should number each paragraph in pencil as this discussion will make reference to them.

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Next Paragraphs 1-17

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Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance Summary (and PDF): Become Your Own Person

In his famous 1841 essay Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson argues that society is in conspiracy against our individuality. To really live good lives, we must have the courage to resist conformity and trust the ‘immense intelligence’ of our own intuition and gut instinct.

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H ow can we best navigate existence? Should we go along with the conventions of society? Should we respect the prevailing traditions and opinions of the day? Or should we relentlessly carve our own paths through life?

Throughout his work, the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882) made his answers to such questions clear, spearheading the Transcendentalist movement of mid-19th century America.

One of the key hallmarks of the Transcendentalist movement, which notably included Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau (see our reading list of Thoreau’s best books here ), is its celebration of the supremacy — even divinity — of nature.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

Divinity is not locked in a distant heaven, say transcendentalists; it is accessible right here in the company of the natural world.

We are thus at our best not when we conform to voices outside ourselves, but when we follow the voice within — the glimmering insight, the “immense intelligence” of our natural intuition and instincts.

Society on this view is seen as a corrupting force — it takes us away from our natural wisdom.

Emerson offers the beginnings of a path for how we might resist the pressures of society in his famous 1841 essay, Self-Reliance (access the full text of Self-Reliance as a free PDF here ), which features in my reading list of Emerson’s best books , and is a crucial contribution to Transcendentalist thought.

With eloquent, persuasive prose, Emerson fiercely defends the idea that the good life involves defying conformity, taking charge of our own existences, and living in accordance with the wisdom of the natural world.

Let’s take a look at Emerson’s essay in more detail, and see why his critique of conformity and celebration of individuality remains so acclaimed to this day.

Emerson: in works of genius, we find our own buried thoughts

E merson begins Self-Reliance by discussing a funny thing he’s observed about great works of art. Namely: that they often reflect our own buried thoughts and feelings back to us. He writes:

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

Emerson reflects,

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 [even] when the whole cry of voices is on the other side.

In other words, if we identify our own buried thoughts and concerns in works of genius — works we celebrate and implore others to read, watch, or listen to — then why, Emerson questions, do we often lack the conviction to express or act on such thoughts ourselves?

Perhaps, Emerson laments, we push down such thoughts because they go against convention in some way, or because we feel they might embarrass or expose us if spoken aloud.

In short: because we’re worried by the judgment of others…

Thus Emerson sets up his attack on convention and conformity, within which he thinks we all hide ourselves for fear of exposing our true natures.

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Society is in conspiracy against our individuality

W ith its silly status games and hierarchies, society saps our confidence and self-reliance, Emerson thinks: “It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.”

As we move through life, we must navigate pre-existing power structures and conventions, and stagger through storms of opinion on what we think, say, and do.

Confident, persuasive voices will try to convince us that this is the way; while others will shame us for daring to act differently.

But against this noise we must try to preserve our individuality, Emerson implores:

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.

While outsourcing our opinions to the crowd may be tempting, and might feel like the safer option, in doing so we only falsify ourselves, Emerson warns:

Most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true.

Of course, society will punish us for trying to steer our own course. “For nonconformity”, Emerson observes, “the world whips you with its displeasure.”

We feel pressure to act according to the expectations of others, because “the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them.”

But exchanging our true selves for the comfort of the crowd is a cost we should not be willing to bear, Emerson thinks:

Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing.

After all, what but mediocrity awaits us in convention and consistency?

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.

Really living means growing and adapting, Emerson says — even if by growing and adapting we contradict our former selves, or people’s expectations of us:

Suppose you should contradict yourself; what then? …Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today.

“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think,” Emerson declares: “No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.”

Being self-reliant: the ineffable intelligence of our inner nature

W e might wonder why Emerson places so much stock on our ‘inner natures’ — what does he really mean by maintaining our individuality? How might we do so?

Well, Emerson thinks we are endowed with intuition from nature, an immense ‘gut’ intelligence that trumps the fleeting fashions of opinion in society.

“We lie in the lap of immense intelligence,” he writes,

which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask whence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all philosophy is at fault. Its presence or its absence is all we can affirm.

We cannot necessarily articulate it, but most of us will be familiar with having a ‘feeling in our gut’ or ‘call of conscience’. It is this kind of intuition that Emerson thinks we should trust much more than public opinion.

We are part of nature, yet the opinions of society corrupt us away from nature:

Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say ‘I think,’ ‘I am,’ but quotes some saint or sage… These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are… [but] man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future…

We will not be happy or strong until, like the examples in nature all around us, we live in the present without second-guessing ourselves, “above time”, self-reliant .

Do not imitate: entrust yourself to be your own person

E merson argues our best acts will never come through imitation, for we will never surpass those on whom we model ourselves.

It is only through really, truly, authentically being ourselves that we can live lives of which we can be proud — lives that take us beyond dreary mediocrity. Emerson writes:

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.

For, indeed, he questions, “where is the master who could have taught Shakspeare?”

Every great person is unique , Emerson thinks. It is through embracing your uniqueness that you shall succeed:

Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart, and thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld again.

Make authenticity the foundation of your relationships

B ut what of others? If living only according to our own intuition for how we should live, does Emerson’s philosophy mean selfishness?

No, Emerson says, it means authenticity: seeking to bloom into the best versions of ourselves — not what society claims is best for us; seeking to be human beings of value — not creatures of conformity.

“Live no longer to the expectation of these deceived and deceiving people with whom we converse,” Emerson writes. “Say to them,

O father, O mother, O wife, O brother, O friend, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward I am the truth’s. Be it known unto you that henceforward I obey no law less than the eternal law... I shall endeavor to nourish my parents, to support my family, to be the chaste husband of one wife, — but these relations I must fill after a new and unprecedented way. I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I will not hide my tastes or aversions…

We still strive to be the best we can be, and to respect and honor our loved ones, but through actions and behaviors that we command, not that are commanded for us.

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Indeed, to be the best people we can be, we must no longer bury ourselves under layers of convention; it would be better for all of us if we could be sincere.

We might not all agree with one another, but we can respect each other’s right to disagree in the name of authenticity:

If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men’s, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. Does this sound harsh today? You will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine, and, if we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last.

Perhaps such defiance may make us worry about upsetting our loved ones. “Yes,” Emerson concedes,

but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments of reason, when they look out into the region of absolute truth; then will they justify me, and do the same thing.

People may think that by rejecting convention we are defying all codes of conduct, but such people are misguided; we are now simply living in line with the immense intelligence of nature, not the fleeting opinions of society:

And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others!

Living according to your own authority

T hough we may begin our lives living according to the conventions of the day or the expectations of others, there comes a time where the scales fall from our eyes and we must become ourselves. As Emerson puts it:

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself, for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, 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. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

So, Emerson commands: do not outsource your share of life to the opinions of others, nor to fortune or luck. Take charge of your own existence, and live according to your own authority right now:

A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

Explore Emerson’s philosophy of self-reliance further

W hat do you make of Emerson’s analysis? Do you value self-reliance over conformity? Do you agree that our intuition is often wiser than public opinion? Or is there an extent to which the ‘call’ of conscience we hear internally is actually the voice of society inside us?

If you’d like to explore Emerson’s view further, you can read his Self-Reliance essay in full in this free PDF (if you have a spare 30-40 minutes, I highly recommend doing so — it’s a fantastic read. Emerson offers powerful critiques of different aspects of society — including the objects of education, travel, and the accumulation of wealth — and treats us to some beautiful natural imagery in his illustration of how we might live happier, more authentic lives.)

You might also be interested in these related reads which discuss the importance of self-reliance for living well:

• The Porcupine’s Dilemma: Schopenhauer’s Wistful Parable on Human Connection
• Übermensch Explained: the Meaning of Nietzsche’s ‘Superman’
• Albert Camus on Coping with Life's Absurdity
• Kierkegaard On Finding the Meaning of Life
• Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Best 5 Books to Read
• Henry David Thoreau: The Best 5 Books to Read

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Self-reliance : the original 1841 essay Ralph Waldo Emerson

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• The Waldo Emerson Essay 1. The Value of Barriers to Self-Reliance 2. Self-Reliance and the Individual 3. Self-Reliance and Society
• Twelve essays by Jessica Helfand On Learning On Gravity On Closure On Loneliness On Character On Uncertainty On Magnanimity On Love On Alchemy On Chance On Authenticity On Individualism On Narrative.
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Advisor: Charles Capper, Professor of History, Boston University; National Humanities Center Fellow Copyright National Humanities Center, 2014

Lesson Contents

Teacher’s note.

• Text Analysis & Close Reading Questions

Follow-Up Assignment

• Student Version PDF

In his essay “Self-Reliance,” how does Ralph Waldo Emerson define individualism, and how, in his view, can it affect society?

Understanding.

In “Self-Reliance” Emerson defines individualism as a profound and unshakeable trust in one’s own intuitions. Embracing this view of individualism, he asserts, can revolutionize society, not through a sweeping mass movement, but through the transformation of one life at a time and through the creation of leaders capable of greatness.

Portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1878

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance” , 1841.

Essay, Literary nonfiction.

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Grade 11-CCR complexity band. For more information on text complexity see these resources from achievethecore.org .

In the Text Analysis section, Tier 2 vocabulary words are defined in pop-ups, and Tier 3 words are explained in brackets.

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• ELA-Literacy.L.11-12.4 (Determine the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases.)
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• Writing in several forms about a variety of subjects

“Self-Reliance” is central to understanding Emerson’s thought, but it can be difficult to teach because of its vocabulary and sentence structure. This lesson offers a thorough exploration of the essay. The text analysis focuses on Emerson’s definition of individualism, his analysis of society, and the way he believes his version of individualism can transform — indeed, save — American society.

The first interactive exercise, well-suited for individual or small group work, presents some of Emerson’s more famous aphorisms as tweets from Dr. Ralph, a nineteenth-century self-help guru, and asks students to interpret and paraphrase them. The second invites students to consider whether they would embrace Dr. Ralph’s vision of life. It explores paragraph 7, the most well-developed in the essay and the only one that shows Emerson interacting with other people to any substantial degree. The exercise is designed to raise questions about the implications of Emersonian self-reliance for one’s relations with others, including family, friends, and the broader society. The excerpt illustrates critic’s Louis Menand’s contention, cited in the background note, that Emerson’s essays, although generally taken as affirmations, are “deeply unconsoling.”

This lesson is divided into two parts, both accessible below. The teacher’s guide includes a background note, the text analysis with responses to the close reading questions, access to the interactive exercises, and a follow-up assignment. The student’s version, an interactive worksheet that can be e-mailed, contains all of the above except the responses to the close reading questions.

Teacher’s Guide

Background questions.

• What kind of text are we dealing with?
• For what audience was it intended?
• For what purpose was it written?
• When was it written?
• What was going on at the time of its writing that might have influenced its composition?

Ralph Waldo Emerson died in 1882, but he is still very much with us. When you hear people assert their individualism, perhaps in rejecting help from the government or anyone else, you hear the voice of Emerson. When you hear a self-help guru on TV tell people that if they change their way of thinking, they will change reality, you hear the voice of Emerson. He is America’s apostle of individualism, our champion of mind over matter, and he set forth the core of his thinking in his essay “Self-Reliance” (1841).

While they influence us today, Emerson’s ideas grew out of a specific time and place, which spawned a philosophical movement called Transcendentalism. “Self-Reliance” asserts a central belief in that philosophy: truth lies in our spontaneous, involuntary intuitions. We do not have the space here to explain Transcendentalism fully, but we can sketch some out its fundamental convictions, a bit of its historical context, and the way “Self-Reliance” relates to it.

By the 1830s many in New England, especially the young, felt that the religion they had inherited from their Puritan ancestors had become cold and impersonal. In their view it lacked emotion and failed to foster that sense of connectedness to the divine which they sought in religion. To them it seemed that the church had taken its eyes off heaven and fixed them on the material world, which under the probings, measurements, and observations of science seemed less and less to offer assurance of divine presence in the world.

Taking direction from ancient Greek philosophy and European thinking, a small group of New England intellectuals embraced the idea that men and women did not need churches to connect with divinity and that nature, far from being without spiritual meaning, was, in fact, a realm of symbols that pointed to divine truths. According to these preachers and writers, we could connect with divinity and understand those symbols — that is to say, transcend or rise above the material world — simply by accepting our own intuitions about God, nature, and experience. These insights, they argued, needed no external verification; the mere fact that they flashed across the mind proved they were true.

To hold these beliefs required enormous self-confidence, of course, and this is where Emerson and “Self-Reliance” come into the picture. He contends that there is within each of us an “aboriginal Self,” a first or ground-floor self beyond which there is no other. In “Self-Reliance” he defines it in mystical terms as the “deep force” through which we “share the life by which things exist.” It is “the fountain of action and thought,” the source of our spontaneous intuitions. This self defines not a particular, individual identity but a universal, human identity. When our insights derive from it, they are valid not only for us but for all humankind. Thus we can be assured that what is true in our private hearts is, as Emerson asserts, “true for all men.”*

But how can we tell if our intuitions come from the “aboriginal Self” and are, therefore, true? We cannot. Emerson says we must have the self-trust to believe that they do and follow them as if they do. If, indeed, they are true, eventually everyone will accept them, and they will be “rendered back to us” as “the universal sense.”

Daguerrotype of Ralph Waldo Emerson

While “Self-Reliance” deals extensively with theological matters, we cannot overlook its political significance. It appeared in 1841, just four years after President Andrew Jackson left office. In the election of 1828 Jackson forged an alliance among the woodsmen and farmers of the western frontier and the laborers of eastern cities. (See the America in Class® lesson “The Expansion of Democracy during the Jacksonian Era.” ) Emerson opposed the Jacksonians over specific policies, chiefly their defense of slavery and their support for the expulsion of Indians from their territories. But he objected to them on broader grounds as well. Many people like Emerson, who despite his noncomformist thought still held many of the political views of the old New England elite from which he sprang, feared that the rise of the Jacksonian electorate would turn American democracy into mob rule. In fact, at one point in “Self-Reliance” he proclaims “now we are a mob.” When you see the word “mob” here, do not picture a large, threatening crowd. Instead, think of what we today would call mass society, a society whose culture and politics are shaped not by the tastes and opinions of a small, narrow elite but rather by those of a broad, diverse population.

Emerson opposed mass-party politics because it was based on nothing more than numbers and majority rule, and he was hostile to mass culture because it was based on manufactured entertainments. Both, he believed, distracted people from the real questions of spiritual health and social justice. Like some critics today, he believed that mass society breeds intellectual mediocrity and conformity. He argued that it produces soft, weak men and women, more prone to whine and whimper than to embrace great challenges. Emerson took as his mission the task of lifting people out of the mass and turning them into robust, sturdy individuals who could face life with confidence. While he held out the possibility of such transcendence to all Americans, he knew that not all would respond. He assured those who did that they would achieve greatness and become “guides, redeemers, and benefactors” whose personal transformations and leadership would rescue democracy. Thus if “Self-Reliance” is a pep talk in support for nonconformists, it is also a manual on how to live for those who seek to be individuals in a mass society.

Describing “Self-Reliance” as a pep talk and a manual re-enforces the way most people have read the essay, as a work of affirmation and uplift, and there is much that is affirmative and uplifting in it. Yet a careful reading also reveals a darker side to Emerson’s self-reliance. His uncompromising embrace of nonconformity and intellectual integrity can breed a chilly arrogance, a lack of compassion, and a lonely isolation. That is why one critic has called Emerson’s work “deeply unconsoling.” 1 In this lesson we explore this side of Emerson along with his bracing optimism.

A word about our presentation. Because readers can take “Self-Reliance” as an advice manual for living and because Emerson was above all a teacher, we found it engaging to cast him not as Ralph Waldo Emerson, a nineteenth-century philosopher, but as Dr. Ralph, a twenty-first-century self-help guru. In the end we ask if you would embrace his approach to life and sign up for his tweets.

*Teacher’s Note: For a more detailed discussion of the “aboriginal Self,” see pp. 65-67 in Lawrence Buell’s Emerson .

1. Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club (New York; Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2001) p. 18. ↩

Text Analysis

Paragraph 1, close reading questions.

What is important about the verses written by the painter in sentence 1? They “were original and not conventional.”

From evidence in this paragraph, what do you think Emerson means by “original”? He defines “original” in sentence 6 when he says that we value the work of Moses, Plato, and Milton because they said not what others have thought, but what they thought.

In sentences 2 and 3 how does Emerson suggest we should read an “original” work? He suggests that we should read it with our souls. We should respond more to the sentiment of the work rather than to its explicit content.

In telling us how to read an original work, what do you think Emerson is telling us about reading his work? In sentences 2 and 3 Emerson is telling us how to read “Self-Reliance” and his work in general. We should attend more to its sentiment, its emotional impact, rather than to the thought it may contain. The reason for this advice will become apparent as we discover that Emerson’s essays are more collections of inspirational, emotionally charged sentences than logical arguments.

How does Emerson define genius? He defines it as possessing the confident belief that what is true for you is true for all people.

Considering this definition of genius, what does Emerson mean when he says that “the inmost in due time becomes the outmost”? Since the private or “inmost” truth we discover in our hearts is true for all men and women, it will eventually be “rendered back to us,” proclaimed, as an “outmost” or public truth.

Why, according to Emerson, do we value Moses, Plato, and Milton? We value them because they ignored the wisdom of the past (books and traditions) and spoke not what others thought but what they thought, the “inmost” truth they discovered in their own hearts. They are great because they transformed their “inmost” truth to “outmost” truth.

Thus far Emerson has said that we should seek truth by looking into our own hearts and that we, like such great thinkers as Moses, Plato, and Milton, should ignore what we find in books and in the learning of the past. What implications does his advice hold for education? It diminishes the importance of education and suggests that formal education may actually get in the way of our search for knowledge and truth.

Why then should we bother to study “great works of art” or even “Self-Reliance” for that matter? Because great works of art “teach us to abide by our spontaneous impressions.” And that is, of course, precisely what “Self-Reliance” is doing. Both they and this essay reassure us that our “latent convictions” are, indeed, “universal sense.” They strengthen our ability to maintain our individualism in the face of “the whole cry of voices” who oppose us “on the other side.”

Based on your reading of paragraph 1, how does Emerson define individualism? Support your answer with reference to specific sentences. Emerson defines individualism as a profound and unshakeable trust in one’s own intuitions. Just about any sentence from 4 through 11 could be cited as support.

Paragraph 34 (excerpt)

Note: Every good self-help guru offers advice on how to handle failure, and in the excerpt from paragraph 35 Dr. Ralph does that by describing his ideal of a self-reliant young man. Here we see Dr. Ralph at perhaps his most affirmative, telling his followers what self-reliance can do for them. Before he does that, however, he offers, in paragraph 34, his diagnosis of American society in 1841. The example of his “sturdy lad” in paragraph 35 suggests what self-reliance can do for society, a theme he picks up in paragraph 36.

What, according to Emerson, is wrong with the “social state” of America in 1841? Americans have become weak, shy, and fearful, an indication of its true problem: it is no longer capable of producing “great and perfect persons.”

Given the political context in which he wrote “Self-Reliance,” why might Emerson think that American society was no longer capable of producing “great and perfect persons”? In Emerson’s view, by giving power to the “mob,” Jacksonian democracy weakened American culture and gave rise to social and personal mediocrity.

Paragraph 35 (excerpt)

What does Emerson mean by “miscarry”? What context clues help us discover that meaning? Here “miscarry” means “to fail.” We can see that by noting the parallel structure of the first two sentences. Emerson parallels “miscarry” and “fails” by placing them in the same position in the first two sentences: “If our young men miscarry…” “If the young merchant fails,…”

What is the relationship between the young men who miscarry and the young merchants who fail in paragraph 35 and the “timorous, desponding whimperers” of paragraph 34? They are the same. The young failures illustrate the point Emerson makes in the previous paragraph about the weakness of America and its citizens.

According to Emerson, how does an “un-self-reliant” person respond to failure? He despairs and becomes weak. He loses “loses heart” and feels “ruined.” He falls into self-pity and complains for years.

Emerson structures this paragraph as a comparison between a “city doll” and a “sturdy lad.” With reference to paragraph 34 what does the “sturdy lad” represent? He represents the kind of person Emerson wants to create, the kind of person who will “renovate” America’s “life and social state.”

What are the connotations of “city doll”? The term suggests weakness with a hint of effeminacy.

Compare a “city doll” with a “sturdy lad.” City Doll: defeated by failure, urban, narrows his options by studying for a profession, learns from books, postpones life, lacks confidence and self-trust. Sturdy Lad: resilient, rural, at least expert in rural skills, “teams it, farms it”, realizes he has many options and takes advantage of them, learns from experience, engages life, possesses confidence, trusts himself.

What point does Emerson make with this comparison? Here Emerson is actually trying to persuade his readers to embrace his version of self-reliance. His comparison casts the “sturdy lad” in a positive light. We want to be like him, not like a “city doll.” Emerson suggests that, through the sort of men and women exemplified by the “sturdy lad,” self-reliance will rescue American life and society from weakness, despair, and defeat and restore its capacity for greatness.

What do you notice about the progression of the jobs Emerson assigns to his “sturdy lad”? They ascend in wealth, prestige, and influence from plow hand to member of Congress.

We have seen that Emerson hopes to raise above the mob people who will themselves be “great and perfect persons” and restore America’s ability to produce such people. What does the progression of jobs he assigns to the “sturdy lad” suggest about the roles these people will play in American society? As teachers, preachers, editors, congressmen, and land owners, they will be the leaders and opinion makers of American society. [1] If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises, they lose all heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is ruined. [2] If the finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of his life. [3] 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. [4] 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. He has not one chance, but a hundred chances.

*Emerson does not mean that the “sturdy lad” would buy a town. He probably means that he would buy a large piece of uninhabited land (townships in New England were six miles square). The point here is that he would become a substantial landowner.

Paragraph 36

In a well organized essay explain what society would be like if everyone embraced Emerson’s idea of self-reliance. Your analysis should focus on Emerson’s attitudes toward law, the family, and education. Be sure to use specific examples from the text to support your argument.

Vocabulary Pop-Ups

• admonition: gentle, friendly criticism
• latent: hidden
• naught: ignored
• lustre: brightness
• firmament: sky
• bards: poets
• sages: wise men and women
• alienated: made unfamiliar by being separated from us
• else: otherwise
• sinew: connective tissues
• timorous: shy
• desponding: discouraging
• renovate: change
• miscarry: fail
• modes: styles
• speculative: theoretical
• Portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson engraved and published by Stephen A. Schoff, Newtonville, Massachusetts, 1878, from an original drawing by Samuel W. Rowse [ca. 1858] in the possession of Charles Eliot Norton. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-pga-04133.
• Daguerreotype of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 4 x 5 black-and-white negative, creator unknown. Courtesy of the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

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The Will to Heal

Oscar wilde on falling into an abyss and climbing back out..

Posted June 22, 2020 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

There is a kind of hope — the most common kind, perhaps — which is based on the belief that the universe will not forsake us. That events will unfold as we wish and chance will favor our cause. We may call this outward-looking hope.

There is another, inward-looking type of hope, based not on a yearning and an expectation that external events would go a certain way, but on self-trust. We have this kind of hope when we resolve to not let ourselves down; when we make a pact with ourselves and promise to be our own allies and make full use of the resources at our disposal in order to remedy our situation.

In an essay on self-reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that the person who has this type of inward-looking hope, based on self-trust, never provokes pity but only gratitude and even reverence:

Let a Stoic open the resources of man, and tell men they are not leaning willows, but can and must detach themselves; that with the exercise of self-trust, new powers shall appear; that a man is the word made flesh, born to shed healing to the nations, that he should be ashamed of our compassion, 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, but thank and revere him, — and that teacher shall restore the life of man to splendor, and make his name dear to all history. [1]

The person who has learned a lesson from the Stoics, Emerson says, has “not one chance but a hundred chances.” [2] This is because a self-reliant person does not wait for the world to present an opportunity on a silver platter, as it were, but actively seeks and creates opportunities.

Such a person reminds us of what we are capable of. The self-reliant are merely human, and so is their strength. And human strength we have also.

This is not to suggest that a self-reliant person doesn’t seek help. Nor does it follow from the fact you don’t seek help or stubbornly refuse it when it is offered that you rely on yourself in the relevant sense. One may be completely resigned and embrace hopelessness and brokenness yet reject help due to pride.

What distinguishes self-reliant people is not that they refuse outside help but that they are always ready to help themselves. If you ask someone else for help and the person lets you down, that may hurt, but you do not, in addition, have to inflict a second blow by letting yourself down too.

How might one become self-reliant? The answer, I think, is that we must begin not when it is hard, but when it isn't. There is a connection between the ability to make use of one’s inner reservoir of strength when times are bad, and the habit of choosing for oneself when times are good. We have to try and plant the seed of resilience when resilience isn’t yet needed. We can do this by acquiring habits of self-trust: thinking for ourselves and choosing for ourselves.

These are, perhaps, not very widespread habits. In De Profundis , a letter written in prison, Oscar Wilde — who got imprisoned for “gross indecency with other men” — following Emerson, suggests plausibly that very few of us march to their own drum:

‘Nothing is more rare in man,’ says Emerson, ‘than an act of his own.’ It is quite true. Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone’s else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. [3]

Wilde says that he himself had lost any sense of self-mastery before his imprisonment. In his case, the ruling forces were not customs and other people’s opinions but desire for pleasure:

Desire, at the end, was a malady, or a madness, or both. I grew careless of the lives of others. I took pleasure where it please me and passed on. I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character… I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain of my soul… [4]

But if we are not the captains of our souls when the sun is shining, how could we expect to assume that role in a terrible storm, without any prior experience of being at the wheel?

This is not to suggest, however, that it cannot be done. This is my main point here. There is a part of us, I think, that remains unbroken by suffering, sealed off, as it were, from all of our maladies. If we don't let it guide us in happy times, we may not notice its presence when we feel broken. But there it is, underneath all of our ills. We can lean on it in order to heal the rest of the self. In so doing, we remain “leaning willows,” to use Emerson’s phrase, but it is on the undamaged part of our own psyches that we lean. Much as a disease can spread from the infected part to the healthy tissue, so health can spread from the unbroken part to the parts in need of repair. That is what healing — or self-healing — is.

That, it seems to me, is precisely the discovery Oscar Wilde made while innocently imprisoned. Wilde who, on his own admission, had lost charge of himself previously, sought to regain self-mastery in prison. The personal transformation began with the realization that neither morality nor religion nor reason could help him in that moment:

Morality does not help me. I am a born antinomian ... Religion does not help me. The faith that others give to what is unseen, I give to what one can touch, and look at ... Reason does not help me. It tells me that the laws under which I am convicted are wrong and unjust laws ... [5]

It should be noted that despite what Wilde says about religion in this passage, it is really organized religion that he could not embrace. Wilde did not like being part of a crowd. About Christ, he speaks in the fondest of terms, calling Christ a supreme individualist and an artist who followed the law of self-perfection. (It is precisely that law that led Christ to the dictum " Forgive your enemies," according to Wilde.)

Wilde, too, was a supreme individualist and an artist. Not surprisingly, he found the ally he needed in himself. The soul whose captain he no longer was, it turned out, had not given up on him :

It was of course my soul, in its ultimate essence, that I had reached. In many ways, I had been its enemy, but I found it waiting for me as a friend. [6]

Wilde's soul, as he puts it, was waiting for him as a friend, because part of his psyche remained undamaged despite the public humiliation which had brought the writer down from the pedestal fame had put him on and had thrown him into the gutter.

Wilde goes on to say that he accepted his own suffering by reframing it and finding meaning in it. Suffering gave him insight into the human condition. He who had previously made pleasure his own personal deity now saw the world as built on suffering and suffering itself as the most real of passions:

Other things may be illusions to the eye, or the appetite , made to blind the one and cloy the other, but out of sorrow have the worlds been built, and at the birth of a child or a star, there is pain. [7]

Behind joy and laughter there may be temperament, coarse, hard and callous. But behind sorrow there is only sorrow. Pain, unlike pleasure, wears no mask. [8]

The point here is not that Wilde saw his own situation in the particular way that he did — what suffering may reveal to us about the world and ourselves being a topic for a separate discussion – but that he met his pain on his own terms. In so doing, Wilde proved stronger than his pain.

This is not to suggest that external events cannot or should not be allowed to help us when we are down. It is only to say that such events never suffice on their own . We have to make them suffice by relating to them in the right way, for instance, by remembering what can give us strength or peace, and calling it to mind when in need.

That appears to be just what Wilde did. In one of the most moving passages — in the deeply moving letter that De Profundis is – Wilde relates an event that took place when he was brought from prison to the Court of Bankruptcy for a hearing. As Wilde was passing — handcuffed and in a prisoner’s attire — someone waited in the long, dreary corridor and raised his hat to Wilde. The gesture hushed the crowd into silence. Wilde says he cherished the event and called to mind the memory of it in order to combat the darkness he’d found himself surrounded by:

When wisdom has been profitless to me, philosophy barren, and the proverbs and phrases of those who have sought to give me consolation as dust and ashes in my mouth, the memory of that little, lovely, silent act of love has … made the desert blossom like a rose, and brought me out of the bitterness of lonely exile into harmony with the wounded, broken, and great heart of the world. [9]

It is the peculiar blessing of inward-looking hope that reconciles us to the world in a deep way. For the person whose hope is always outward-looking, the world is a happy place when hopes are fulfilled, but the joy is precarious. The environment comes to be seen as hostile and even intolerable if hopes are dashed. For those, by contrast, whose hope is based on trust in themselves, for those who can draw enough strength from a single rose in the desert in order to heal and to go on, the world is never a hostile place. For all its pain and suffering, it is home.

[1] Emerson, R. W. (1841/2019). Self-Reliance . Logos Books, 26.

[3] Wilde, O. (2017). The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde . Hertfordshire, UK: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1084.

[4] Ibid., 1071.

[5] Ibid., 1073.

[6] Ibid., 1084.

[7] Ibid., 1078.

[9] Ibid., 1070.

Iskra Fileva, Ph.D., is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

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What is Self-Reliance and How to Develop It?

Even though Ralph Waldo Emerson may not have introduced the concept, it was he who brought it to the general public with his 1841 essay Self-Reliance .

In positive psychology, self-reliance has strong theoretical significance thanks to its implications for happiness. You’ll probably notice some overlap, or at least potential implications for self-worth, self-expression, self-knowledge, resilience, and for self-acceptance.

So, it’s not about doing everything yourself. It’s not about being financially independent, either. And it’s certainly not about shouldering every hardship you face all on your lonesome. In this article, we’ll have a look at what being self-reliant really refers to, and how we can develop it within ourselves.

Before you read on, we thought you might like to download our three Self-Compassion Exercises for free . These science-based exercises will not only help you increase the compassion and kindness you show yourself but will also give you the tools to help your clients, students or employees show compassion and develop the confidence to rely on themselves.

This Article Contains:

What is the meaning of self-reliance, the psychology of self-reliance, ralph waldo emerson and self-reliance, 3 examples of self-reliance, the importance of having self-reliance, how to develop self-reliance, 14 self-reliance skills for preschoolers, 3 self-reliance activities for youth (pdf), the self-reliance scale, self-reliance and transcendentalism, recommended youtube videos, a take-home message.

Interestingly, there’s no single sentence—not even from Emerson himself—that really captures all the aspects of self-reliance in one pop.

Merriam Webster defines self-reliance simply as ‘ reliance on one’s own efforts and abilities ’, which doesn’t quite do the concept much justice, either.

Let’s look at the psychological mentions of self-reliance for a better understanding.

In an age where statistics allows almost everything to be psychometrically measured and operational definitions abound, it isn’t surprising that there’s no one definition for self-reliance.

What we do know is that the concept has been linked to ‘the self’—in its psychological sense—for at least several decades (Baumeister, 1987).

More specifically, self-reliance is consistently mentioned alongside, if not within, discussions of self-definition. What makes it unique is the approach to society that self-reliance encompasses—it has been alluded to roughly in psychological journals as:

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As mentioned, Self-Reliance is the topic (and title) of an 1841 essay from US philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. Born in Boston in 1803, Emerson wrote poetry and gave lectures that would greatly influence other famous names such as Henry Thoreau and Walt Whitman (IEP, 2019).

Self-Reliance contains Emerson’s beliefs and perspectives on how society negatively impacts our growth. He argues strongly that self-reliance, self-trust, and individualism, amongst other things, are ways that we can avoid the conformity imposed upon us. Or, he also argues, that we quite frequently impose upon ourselves.

It’s a powerful piece of work, and although I’ll try to isolate the most heavily emphasized aspects, it is definitely worth reading in its entirety. If you’d rather listen, there’s also a link to the free audiobook at the end of this article.

Many things can be construed from Emerson’s writings. Here are a few examples of some key concepts that shine through in his seminal essay, Self-Reliance .

1. Thinking Independently

The ability to think autonomously goes hand in hand with trusting your own instinct. Lots of Emerson’s work centered on how people tend to ‘hide behind’ what they’ve learned from society, or significant others within society. He believed this was mere imitation and was linked with a lack of confidence in one’s own intuition and rational capabilities.

Basically, if you (or I, or anyone) believe in something, and consider that it holds merit after thinking it through, there should be nothing holding us back from voicing it with confidence. Not to do so, Emerson believed, is to conform to societal expectations for no good reason.

2. Embracing Your Individuality

As a more practical example, we can imagine that Bella has parents who are both lawyers. They want nothing more than for Bella to follow in their footsteps and are encouraged by her excellent grades at school.

At home, however, Bella finds that she’s spending every spare minute writing poetry. She wants to make a difference to the world and touch people’s lives through verse. This is where she finds her greatest happiness and decides instead to pursue a career as a poet instead.

3. Striving Towards Your Own Goals, Bravely

In an extension of the above, Bella seeks to take steps toward achieving her own goals of becoming a poet. She’s aware that she’ll receive a lot more emotional and financial support by following her parents’ dreams, but she’s willing to take her chances. Bella believes in ‘cause and effect’ (Emerson, 1967), and purposeful action. She isn’t overly concerned about rejection by her parents, because she just wants to be herself.

These examples are based on the key arguments in Emerson’s original paper on self-reliance, and represent the three concepts most closely related to individualism. It’s important to remember that self-reliance is not about cutting yourself off from everybody.

That is, being true to yourself, being capable of independent thought, knowing your own loves and being able to pursue them independently of others’ judgments is not the same as isolating yourself from society.

While Emerson does expand considerably on the value of solitude, the idea of social networks—of having friends—features strongly in his work. We’ll touch on these shortly when we look at how to develop self-reliance.

Having self-reliance is important for several reasons. The most obvious being that depending on others for help, means there will be times when it’s not available.

But let’s dig a little deeper to understand how and why you can use this concept to flourish, grow, find, and nurture happiness. Self-reliance is also important because it:

• Means you can solve problems and make decisions by yourself . This is critical as we grow older and learn to live independently;
• Allows you to feel happy by yourself, in yourself , and about yourself —without needing to rely on others;
• Involves developing self-acceptance , a very powerful thing to have;
• Involves acquiring self-knowledge and practicing self-compassion ;
• Gives you perspective, which in turn…
• Gives you direction.

Of course, the list is very far from exhaustive. If you have personally experienced, or believe other important benefits from becoming self-reliant, please do share them.

Whether you want to develop self-reliance yourself, or you’d like to help your child on their own journey of development, here are some tips.

Steps to self-reliance – Mandy Kloppers

In an article on developing self-reliance, mental health counselor Mandy Kloppers offers several practical steps.

Her main tips include (Kloppers, 2019):

1. Accepting yourself, and being your own best friend.

Learning and appreciating your own character strengths is very important in being able to support yourself as you go through life. What are your character strengths ? Are you kind? Curious? Brave? Don’t forget to reflect on your achievements and the things you accomplish that make you feel proud. It’s important not to put yourself down or sabotage your own efforts.

2. Inner confidence.

In society, we’re conditioned to feel happy when we receive compliments, praise, and reassurance from others. If that’s not forthcoming, we can feel insecure or vulnerable, sometimes even helpless. Being self-reliant involves the ability to feel confident in yourself when these aren’t around—because they may not always be. Not sure what to be confident about? Try one of these activities to increase your sense of self-worth .

3. Making our own decisions.

Kloppers advises against looking consistently outside for security and relying on others to accept us for who we are. When we can accept ourselves as unique and practice non-judgment, we can find security from inner sources.

This rational, independent thinking is something we’ve already touched on. As children, we learn to look to others for guidance when solving problems or making decisions. The tendency becomes ingrained within us, and as adults, we aren’t always capable of handling adversity in a way that we feel sure about. Have confidence in your own capabilities and it becomes a lot easier to find security within.

4. Recognize and manage dependence.

Becoming aware of when you tend to turn to others is a part of self-knowledge. We may know that we turn to others for certain things, but sometimes this means we’re missing out on a chance to build up our own confidence. Setting goals and achieving them your own way not only gives you a sense of accomplishment and reward but greater belief in your own judgment.

5. Accept yourself for who you are.

Self-acceptance is a huge thing. Instead of looking to others for approval, it’s alright to give that approval yourself. Seeking others’ acceptance is yet another way that we practice dependence on others, and it can be a pervasive, hard-to-shake habit. To develop self-reliance, we need to notice these tendencies before we can change them. But it’s worth it.

You can read more in the original post .

Self-reliance – Ralph Waldo Emerson

We can also draw very clear inferences directly from Emerson’s essay itself. From this, more ways to develop self-reliance include:

1. Having your own values.

Society’s values may not be aligned with our own deep-rooted beliefs. This can be at such a subconscious level that we don’t always pick up on it. If society values one thing, and it’s not congruent with our own, we can feel as though it’s hard to gain acceptance.

For example, you may value diversity and inclusiveness but maybe work somewhere that doesn’t also value such a culture. This creates cognitive dissonance that can be unpleasant to deal with (Fostinger, 1957).

2. Not relying on ‘things’ to feel happiness.

Emerson also argued strongly about the negative potential influences of material possessions; he was of the belief that we live in materialistic times. Life is constantly changing if we tie our happiness to external objects, what happens when they’re gone?

3. Decide who you want to be, and how you want to get there.

Pretty much, this is almost the same as having your own values. Except that once we know our own values, we can understand what makes us happy and how we would like to live our lives. Then, we exercise our own judgment about how we want to get there.

Arguably, these aren’t the only ways we can develop self-reliance. It’s also true that children will often need much simpler approaches to learning that can often start at a more practical level. Learning to tie one’s own shoelaces, take on little jobs, and so forth.

Self-reliance begins at an early age; at least, some basic elements of it definitely do.

Other aspects of self-concept take a little more time to really develop—such as learning to view ourselves as independent and challenging others’ perspectives.

Examples of self-reliance skills for preschoolers are far more simple. According to preschool director and author Carolyn Tomlin , self-reliance includes:

1. Solving Problems Themselves

Of course, these will be problems that can reasonably be considered within the cognitive and physical capabilities of K1 and K2 kids. Teachers and parents can offer preschoolers support and help during the process while allowing them the freedom to trial-and-error and exercise discretion (Vygotsky, 1978).

2. Making Their Own Rules For Play

As kids play, there are times when teachers can step back and let them establish their own rules for games and make-believe. Through this, they can develop their own boundaries (NIDirect.gov.uk, 2019).

3. Scheduling Routine Tasks

Tomlin suggests parents and educators start small and work their way up gradually. That is, an adult can make the child a timetable for chores that they are expected to complete. Kids can check these off as they complete them or put a star beside the task. Over time, these chores will adapt to suit a kids level of development, but they can start simple, like feeding a pet or cleaning their play area.

4. Managing Their Time

This builds on the previous skill. As they grow, kids can learn to start doing the timetabling for themselves. A nice exercise for this is included in the next section on Self-Reliance Activities for Youth.

5. Developing Independent Thought

Giving kids options allows them to think and choose for themselves. This is the first step toward independent thought at a much higher level later on.

6. Making Friends

Emerson described the joy of friendship as (1967): “ the spiritual inspiration that comes…when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship ”. As kids make friends, they learn to build up positive images of themselves while expressing care and empathy for their peers.

7. Completing What They Begin

When the initial fun wears off, the temptation to just walk away from an activity is pretty familiar to most of us. This is despite the fact that perseverance can often lead to incredibly rewarding and intrinsically motivating results. Teaching kids to complete small tasks that they get started on is a good way to help them develop self-knowledge, self-discipline, and pursue larger goals (Locke & Latham, 1990).

8. Tidying Up After Themselves

Such a basic self-reliance skill that most of us probably can’t recall when or where we learned it the first time around. For preschoolers, it provides a sense of stability and predictability—but more importantly, a means for achieving it. This can be valuable for dealing with turmoil or adversity in more serious scenarios.

9. Asking for help

In order to learn, and to eventually make rational, individual decisions, kids shouldn’t be afraid to reach out for help when they need it. Being comfortable with yourself, as Emerson argued, is a key part of being self-reliant (Emerson, 1967). Even if that means asking others for guidance or clarification (Warburton, 2016).

In another look at self-reliance in children, Prime Performance Psychologist Dr. Jim Taylor offers up some broader categories for self-reliance skills in kids (Taylor, 2018):

1. Cognitive Skills – gathering and rationally analyzing information to solve problems and make decisions;

2. Emotional Skills – Managing emotions responsibly. This is very similar to the Emotional Intelligence concept of Emotional Regulation, and applies to our social interactions with others;

3. Behavioral Skills – These include working and studying, though at the preschool level they will still be relevant at a much, much simpler level;

4. Interpersonal Skills – Making friends, communicating, and related skills;

5. Practical Skills – Here, Taylor describes activities in everyday life, just like the chores suggested by Tomlin above. For preschoolers, this could mean tidying up their toys, feeding a pet, or similar.

In this next part, some more specific activities and PDFs that will hopefully give a better sense of how both preschoolers and older kids can develop self-reliance.

If you’re a teacher, parent, or are involved in youth work, here are three activities (as PDFs) that you can easily download and use as resources. There are a few different elements of self-reliance within these, including simple practical tasks that younger ones can easily get a hold of.

1. I am and I can

This one’s a group activity that’s best suited for younger children of about KS1 or KS2.

The underpinning theory of this exercise is that kids can develop a sense of their own competence by learning to identify their own strengths as a person. These can include unique capabilities, talents, and characteristics—once kids become aware of these, they can tune into these positive aspects in difficult situations.

You will need some large pieces of paper, drawing materials, and some space for the group.

Start by inviting the kids to think of things that they can do well, and which make them feel good about that ability. For example, this could be running really fast or able to pick out different types of birds.

You can then play a round of ‘I am good at…’, in which kids take turns to chat about these things by finishing the sentence. If you find that one or more children don’t feel they can respond, ask another kid to step in with something they believe that person does well.

Then, talk about how learning is a lifelong activity—it’s something we never stop doing and we are always learning new skills. You can use this opportunity to go back over the things they’ve just said, which they didn’t have a few years ago. Share one of your own learning experiences and note any difficulties you encountered, but end with how satisfying it was to finally learn that skill.

End with a group round of ‘I can…’, giving the children a chance to re-affirm their beliefs in their strengths.

Kids can then break into smaller groups. In these, one child will lie on a piece of paper while the others draw around him or her, creating a body outline. Get the rest of the children to ‘decorate’ this body shape by drawing all the talents and skills they can see in that child. The final touch is that each group member can write a positive statement of encouragement and put it by the body outline.

These completed ‘body shapes’ are good to hang around the classroom, so kids can see them every day.

2. Getting Organized

Another great self-reliance activity for children of writing age is getting them to schedule their own time.

This is a simplified exercise centered on individualism and personal responsibility, two of Emerson’s key foci. Of course, you can flexibly adapt the difficulty and independence level of the timetabling approach to suit a certain young person’s particular needs and their level of development.

It’s as simple as asking them to create their own timetable for reaching their weekly, monthly, annual, or long-term goals. Children can use this activity to learn that getting there in the future means organizing now . They can also get affirmation about their achievements by logging when they accomplish a certain task or goal.

Headings that you may find useful for a timetable include:

Subject – Kids can write the theme of their goal, and you can use homework as one idea, or broader life goals as another.

Assignment/Responsibility – Another possibility is ‘ Change I want to Make ’, although this would ideally accompany another category encompassing ‘ Steps I can take to make the change ’ (Polk Mentoring Alliance, 2008: 18).

Due Date ; and

Completed – Where the child can have a visible reminder of their accomplishments.

3. Personal Mission Statement

The PDF we just introduced in the last exercise also has some resources for children to create their own personal mission statements.

However, we thought it would be nice to provide a template that teenagers and older children might be able to benefit from.

Personal Mission Statements also ask a young person to think about who they are, what they represent, what they want to accomplish, and why. They encourage self-reliance by inviting the writer to look inside themselves and seek their own values and beliefs.

This resource is more of a framework than a template, and it asks the young person to answer three questions so they can craft their own statement:

• Outline your perfect day with unlimited resources. Describe as much as you can about your passions and interests.
• Imagine you’re happily surrounded by your family at the age of 150. What would you tell them about the most important things in life?
• Pretend it’s a significant milestone at a later stage in life; maybe you’ve turned 30, 50, or 80. The press asks you to summarize your accomplishments and think about what you’d hope your colleagues, peers, and family to say when discussing you. How would you like to have made a difference in their lives?

The next part is for the writer to review the answers to these questions. The idea is that these should give them valuable help to answer the questions above. That is, as noted above: who they are, what they represent, what they want to accomplish, and why .

This PDF from Humboldt State University is the outline for the exercise in its full form.

So how is self-reliance measured? One assessment sometimes used by therapists and teachers is called the Self-Reliance Scale.

The Self-Reliance Scale (SRS) is one measure in the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC-3) (Sandoval & Echandia, 1994). The BASC-3 itself is a tool for assessing whether school-age children of 3 to 18 years old may require extra support for their emotional and behavioral functioning (Pearson Clinical, 2019).

Utilized in both clinical and educational contexts, the BASC is sometimes administered by educators, and sometimes by parents. If you have come across this assessment before, you’ll know that it contains several scales, one of which is used to measure Self-Reliance.

Specific self-reliance items taken directly from the BASC-3 include the following (Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2015: 19):

• I am someone you can rely on;
• I can solve difficult problems by myself;
• If I have a problem, I can usually work it out;
• Others ask me to help them;
• I am dependable;
• My friends come to me for help;
• I am good at making decisions; and
• I am reliable.

Youths taking the BASC-3 usually give a self-report answer on either a Likert scale or they can give a True-False answer. Usually, the forms take only a few minutes to administer in total. You can find the sample report by Pearson Clinical, which was put together by Dr. Kamphaus and the late Dr. Reynolds.

Want to know more about Transcendentalism and how it’s linked to self-reliance?

What is Transcendentalism?

The Transcendentalism movement is generally acknowledged as having begun around 1820-1836 in New England.

Not to be equated with Transcendental Meditation, which is a practice, Transcendentalism is described by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Goodman, 2003) as:

“an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around Ralph Waldo Emerson”

Several key ideas underpin this movement, with one of the original sense that individual purity can be ‘corrupted’ by society; that institutions thus (negatively) impact on how the individual mentally ‘forms’ their perspectives and experience of the world around them (Grusin, 1991; Goodman, 2003).

This latter concept may be familiar if you’ve read the work(s) of Immanuel Kant, who famously distinguished between ‘perception’ and ‘intuition’ (Kant, 1949).

To be uncorrupted, therefore, Transcendentalism advocates individualism. And this links back to positive psychology in, frankly, quite a beautiful way. Put simply, we can choose to ignore, invalidate, or dismiss the (sometimes negative, some would argue false) information we perceive from society. This gives us the power, academics argue, to transform ourselves, as well as the world in which we live (Díaz & González, 2012).

Transcendentalism in Self-Reliance

Emerson believed that societal pressures—institutions and others—were responsible for a lot of conformist behavior. In fairly rough terms, his view was that children alone don’t succumb to these pressures. In fact, he describes the “nonchalant boy” as the only kind of self-reliant individual who offers “independent, genuine verdict” (McClelland, 2011).

The idea that one can rely on his or her own judgment, choices, and be free from these societal influences is to be self-reliant. As such, according to Transcendentalism and Emerson, it’s better to trust yourself. In some cases, if not most or all cases, to trust yourself over and above what others believe.

As well as the original text in audio format, here are some lovely videos that explain the concept and its benefits.

1. Self-Reliance By Ralph Waldo Emerson | Animated Book Summary

This video is a review of Emerson’s original essay in audiobook format, plus some explainers. Please note, there’s a swear word thrown in.

Nonetheless, it’s nicely animated, and provides a concise overview of some key concepts, four of which are:

• Taking responsibility (which comes along with accountability);
• Being informed about the environment you’re in;
• Knowing your direction and the steps required to reach your goal; and
• Making autonomous decisions.

2. Self Reliance, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essay Audiobook, Classic Literature

Here’s the actual essay itself, which is in the public domain. You can listen to the whole thing in its entirety, which lasts a little over an hour.

3. Emotional Dependency vs. Self-Reliance

This is another lovely animation that talks about looking within yourself and reducing your reliance on others. The key takeaways are that awareness is a first step, and that self-reliance can impart a sense of emotional freedom.

4. PNTV: Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Brian Johnson makes video podcasts about personal growth books on his channel Philosophers Notes TV. In this clip, he takes five key concepts of self-reliance and discusses them in a pretty nice mini-talk.

It’s interesting to see how different people interpret Emerson’s original essay in diverse ways, yet the core principles are pretty clear.

5. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Life

It’s hard not to learn all about self-reliance and not find out more about what shaped the person behind the concept. This is a very short 2-minute video that features some quotes from Emerson, along with biographical facts about the man’s life.

If videos aren’t your thing, you may appreciate some quotes on self-reliance. Hopefully, there will be something you find useful, inspirational, or help you develop your own self-reliance.

Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.

Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go.

Moral autonomy appears when the mind regards as necessary an ideal that is independent of all external pressures.

Jean Piaget

Remember, you and you alone are responsible for maintaining your energy. Give up blaming, complaining and excuse making, and keep taking action in the direction of your goals – however mundane or lofty they may be.

Jack Canfield

There is no dependence that can be sure but a dependence upon one’s self.

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.

You don’t have to worry about burning bridges if you’re building your own.

Kerry Wagner

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

Friedrich Nietzche

Tradition: a cage for the free spirit.

Marty Rubin

You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.

Abraham Lincoln

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.

Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.

Margaret Mead

Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

Christopher Robin

Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves.

Marie Curie

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.

Albert Einstein

The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

Henry David Thoreau, Walden

To find yourself, think for yourself.

17 Exercises To Foster Self-Acceptance and Compassion

Help your clients develop a kinder, more accepting relationship with themselves using these 17 Self-Compassion Exercises [PDF] that promote self-care and self-compassion.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

Today we’ve thought about what it means to be self-reliant. As well as having a look at the concept in positive psychology, we’ve touched a bit on how Ralph Waldo Emerson contributed so much to the concept through his work.

If you’ve wondered why the idea is so important, hopefully, you’ll find some of what we’ve considered to be of use—the ideas of independent thought and using your own beliefs to guide you.

You can develop self-reliance by learning to be yourself, practicing making your own judgments, and holding your own values. As you use these to guide you towards your goals, remember not to underestimate the power of your own intuition. Don’t be afraid to be yourself.

Hopefully, some of our exercises have been helpful and guided you towards further reading. It’s a fascinating topic!

As always, we’d more than love to hear any of your thoughts or comments. Feel free to share them just below!

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Self Compassion Exercises for free .

• Baumeister, R. F. (1987). How the self became a problem: A psychological review of historical research. Journal of personality and social psychology, 52 (1), 163-176.
• Díaz, E. C., & González, J. C. S. (2012). The roots of positive psychology. Papeles del psicólogo, 33 (3), 172-182.
• Emerson, E. W. (2013). The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Vol. 11). Read Books Ltd.
• Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of cognitive dissonance . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
• Festinger, L. (1959). Some attitudinal consequences of forced decisions. Acta Psychologica, 15 , 389-390.
• Goodman, R. (2003). Transcendentalism . Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/transcendentalism/.
• Grusin, R. A. (1991). Transcendentalist hermeneutics: institutional authority and the higher criticism of the Bible. Duke University Press.
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP). (2019). Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882). Retrieved from https://www.iep.utm.edu/emerson/
• Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (1990). A theory of goal setting & task performance . Prentice-Hall, Inc.
• Kant, I. (1949). Critique of practical reason, and other writings in moral philosophy.
• Kloppers, M. (2019). Steps to Self-Reliance . Retrieved from https://www.mentalhelp.net/blogs/steps-to-self-reliance/.
• McClelland, M. (2011). Emerson and the voice of the child . PhD Thesis, Washington University in St Louis. Retrieved from https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1613&context=etd.
• NICurriculum.org. (n.d.). Northern Ireland Curriculum: Getting to Know Me. Retrieved from https://www.nicurriculum.org.uk/docs/key_stages_1_and_2/areas_of_learning/pdmu/livinglearningtogether/year3/yr3_unit1.pdf
• NIDirect.gov.uk. (2019). How play helps children’s development . Retrieved from https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/how-play-helps-childrens-development.
• Pearson Clinical. (2019). Identify and manage behavioral and emotional strengths and weaknesses with the BASC™-3. Retrieved from https://www.pearsonclinical.com/education/landing/basc-3.html.
• Reynolds, C. R. & Kamphaus, R.W. (2015). Behavior Assessment System for Children, Third Edition (BASC™-3) BASC-3 Self-Report of Personality – College Interpretive Summary Report . Retrieved from https://images.pearsonclinical.com/images/assets/basc-3/BASC-3-Sample-Report-College.pdf.
• Sacks, K. S. (2003). Understanding Emerson: “The American Scholar” and His Struggle for Self-Reliance . Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Sandoval, J., & Echandia, A. (1994). Behavior assessment system for children. Journal of School Psychology, 32 (4), 419-425.
• Taylor, J. (2018). Raise Self-Reliant Children . Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-power-prime/201809/raise-self-reliant-children.
• Tomlin, C.R. (2008). 10 Ways to Create Self-Reliant Learners . Retrieved from http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=503
• Ulstad, K., Owen, G., and Mortenson, R. (2008). The Self-Reliance Achievement Scale (SRAS). Retrieved from https://www.wilder.org/sites/default/files/imports/SRAS_Statewide_3-08.pdf
• Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
• Warburton, G. (2016). Ask More, Tell Less: A Practical Guide for Helping Children Achieve Self-Reliance . Denver, Colorado: Outskirts Press.

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thank you for the information!

Solid article. It did not leave anything out. Thank you for taking the time, and doing the research to write this very well composed, useful, and informative article.

This article gave me the insight to upskill and reskill myself in Self-reliance.

Thank so much for the article. It is very informative

What are the social cultural factors affecting self-reliance

Thanks for your question. There is a plethora of resources that explore a range of factors affecting self-reliance. I have found a few that might be relevant for you, which can be found here and here . In general, I suggest looking into the middle-range theory of self-reliance to better understand the theoretical framework.

I hope this helps!

Kind regards, -Caroline | Community Manager

I got more insights on self reliance and am going to apply it.

very educative article, I have learnt a lot as it has left me with so much insights and wisdom. Thank you.

This is JUST what is needed in support of my ASD/neurodivergent teen battling depression.

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Self-Reliance

Ralph waldo emerson, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of the central figures associated with the American philosophical and literary movement known as transcendentalism. Transcendentalism thrived during the late 1830s to the 1840s in the US and originated with a group of thinkers in New England that included Emerson. The transcendentalists believed that the US needed reformation in its religion, arts, higher education, and culture. Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” is one of the most important statements of transcendentalist beliefs and how they apply to everyday life.

In Emerson’s transcendentalism, the individual is the supreme source of truth because the universe (or “Oversoul”) is inside each individual, and each individual is a part of the universe, just as nature is. Emerson further argues that there is an underlying unity to everything, including the individual, and that seeing the parts of the universe as separate from the individual is nothing more than a bad habit. That is why Emerson sees “children, babes, and brutes” as being “pretty oracles nature yields”—he means that they are not yet in the habit of seeing themselves as separate from everything around them.

Emerson therefore believes that the search for truth should always start with contemplation of the individual self and nature . He posits that when the individual engages in self-contemplation, they come to understand that the individual isn’t separate from all parts of the universe but is instead “one with them, and proceeds obviously from the same source whence their life and being also proceed.” Emerson also argues that because all of creation is simply a reflection of an underlying truth, contemplating the individual is a very good shortcut to understanding the truth of existence. He believes that if each individual can just pay close enough attention to themselves and ignore the noise of other individuals and the senses, they will eventually understand that “we lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams.”

Emerson’s definition of the self-reflection needed to find this truth is very specific. He is careful to make clear that self-reflection is not merely intellectual, in the sense that it applies only to the individual reflecting on their own personal thoughts. While he certainly does believe that the individual should reflect on thoughts and ideas, Emerson explicitly makes clear that self-reflection also involves simply listening to one’s instincts. In other words, he sees the individual’s intuition as also containing the individual’s truth. In fact, as Emerson puts it, intuition is the “primary wisdom... whilst all later teachings are tuitions.” Ultimately, Emerson’s guidelines for the practice of self-reflection can be summed up in his famous saying: “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.” He insists that the individual can only find truth within themselves — their whole self, in their conscious thoughts and deeper intuitions — and that only by “trusting thyself” can they access that truth. This idea is the foundation of Emerson’s concept of self-reliance.

This philosophy was a radical departure for the time, and in conflict with traditional thought and society . In fact, Emerson specifically argues against the prevailing beliefs by stating that truth cannot be found in either the conventional morality of mass culture or in institutions, such as the church or government, because they discourage the individual from contemplating the self. Emerson argues that, instead, the individual can only find the truth by paying attention to their own mind and intuition. To Emerson, then, it is solitude, rather than the company of others, that is most conducive to the discovery of the truth. Being able to hear one’s inner voice, despite the influence of society, is what makes a person great.

But Emerson is under no illusion that hearing one’s inner voice is easy. When Emerson states that “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 firmament of bards and sages,” he is pointing out two related but distinct things. First, he is stating that the individual’s own insights and intuitions are more valuable and contain more truth than any of the received wisdom from society, and second, he is acknowledging that each individual has to learn this for himself. In other words, Emerson is admitting that such trust in oneself takes effort and is attained only through practice.

He also argues that the institutions and thinkers that most people assume serve as sources of truth are not truly such sources; upon examination, Emerson says, important religious and ethical moments in history are always the result of specific individuals. He claims that “[a]n institution is the lengthened shadow of one man; as, the Reformation, of Luther; Quakerism, of Fox; Methodism, of Wesley; Abolition, of Clarkson. Scipio, Milton called ‘the height of Rome’; and all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons.” The individual’s influence underlies what eventually became the institution.

Emerson goes a step further by arguing that the institutions themselves and society as a whole can in fact serve as impediments to finding truth. Society actively reduces the likelihood of an individual accessing their own internal truth. As he puts it: intuition and insight “are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world.” Society, in Emerson’s transcendentalist view, is a force that the individual must escape in order to gain access to truth.

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Transcendentalism Quotes in Self-Reliance

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.

We denote this primary wisdom as Intuition, whilst all later teachings are tuitions.

We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity.