Quotes & Sayings About Self Reliance From Ralph Emerson

We are such lovers of self-reliance, that we excuse in a man many sins, if he will show us a complete satisfaction in his position, which asks no leave to be, of mine, or any man's good opinion. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Self reliance, the height and perfection of man, is reliance on God. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

We live in a very low state of the world, and pay unwilling tribute to government founded on force. There is not, among the most religious and instructed men of the most religious and civil nations, a reliance on the moral sentiment, and a sufficient belief in the unity of things to persuade them that society can be maintained without artificial restraints, as well as the solar system; or that the private citizen might be reasonable, and a good neighbor, without the hint of a jail or a confiscation. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourself. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The virtue in most request is conformity. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Man is a stream whose source is hidden. Our being is descending into us from we know not whence. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The masses have no habit of self-reliance or original action. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure, that it is profane to seek to interpose helps. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of everyone of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the way of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and already the evil begins to be repaired. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Truly speaking, it is not instruction, but provocation, that I can receive from another soul. What he announces, I must find true in me, or reject; and on his word, or as his second, be he who he may, I can accept nothing. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The reliance on authority measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul. The position men have given to Jesus, now for many centuries of history, is a position of authority. It characterizes themselves. It cannot alter the eternal facts. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

You are constantly invited to be what you are. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

If he had the earth for his pasture and the sea for his pond, he would be a pauper still. He only is rich who owns the day. There is no king, rich man, fairy or demon who possesses such power as that.
Mentioned in
Sixty Days and Counting, by Kim Stanley Robinson — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The basis of good manners is self-reliance. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whence, then, this worship of the past? The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

If we live truly, we shall see truly. It is as easy for the strong man to be strong, as it is for the weak to be weak. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Beware of charisma ... Representative Men; was Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1850 phrase for the great men in a democracy ... Is there some common quality among these Representative Men who have been most successful as our leaders? I call it the need to be authentic-or, as our dictionaries tell us, conforming to fact and therefore worthy of trust, reliance or belief. While the charismatic has an uncanny outside source of strength, the authentic is strong because he is what he seems to be. — Daniel J. Boorstin

I do not wish to please him; I wish that he should wish to please me. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their association; in their property; in their speculative views. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Discontent is want of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our reliance on the physician is a kind of despair of ourselves. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdom which cannot help itself. — Ralph Waldo Emerson