Brief Biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson—an American essayist, lecturer, and

philosopher—was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 25,
1803. The son of a prominent Unitarian minister, Emerson
entered Harvard at 14 and completed his education at Harvard
Divinity School. Emerson served as a pastor at Boston’s
Second Church from 1829 to 1832 but resigned a year after the
death of his first wife and during a period in which he began
openly expressing doubts about the church. After traveling for
several months in Europe in 1833, Emerson returned to the
United States to begin a career as a lecturer. He married his
second wife and moved to Concord, Massachusetts, in 1835.
1836 was a pivotal year in Emerson’s life. He helped arrange
the first meetings of the Transcendental Club, an intellectual
group devoted to renovating American culture and literature,
and he published “Nature,” an important essay in which he
articulated the key tenets of transcendentalism, a philosophy
that prized individuality above all else. In 1837, he gave a
lecture, “The American Scholar,” on the need for a uniquely
American literature, a theme that persisted in his work over the
years. In the years that followed, Emerson began his friendship
with Henry David Thoreau, another important transcendentalist
and someone who encouraged Emerson to keep the journals
that became important sources for his writing. Emerson also
helped to establish the transcendentalist journal called The
Dial, and he published several essay collections that
established him as an important American intellectual.
Emerson’s health began declining in the late 1860s, and he
ended his career as a lecturer in 1879. Emerson died in 1882 in
Concord, Massachusetts, of complications of pneumonia.

Key Facts about Self-Reliance

Ÿ Full Title: “Self-Reliance”
Ÿ When Written: 1832 to 1841

Ÿ Where Written: Concord and Boston, Massachusetts

Ÿ When Published: 1841
Ÿ Literary Period: American Transcendentalism, American
Romanticism

Ÿ Genre: Essay, philosophical text

Ÿ Antagonist: Conformity

Ÿ Point of View: Multiple points of view, including first-person,

second-person, and third-person

Historical Context of Self-Reliance

“Self-Reliance” and transcendentalism in general reflect a
movement to reform the Unitarian religious tradition of
Emerson’s childhood and early adult life. Like many of the older
faiths of early America, Unitarianism was attacked in the early
1800s because it failed to provide an emotionally satisfying
experience for its adherents and it didn’t offer relevant guidance
on how to function in a US that was undergoing rapid cultural
changes and confronting important political issues, including
slavery and the rights of women. Emerson’s work also reflects
the influence of Romanticism, a nineteenth century literary
movement that celebrated the importance of the individual,
imagination, and irrationality.

Ralph Waldo EmersonCharacter

Analysis
The author. Emerson’s voice in this essay is a confident one
that makes controversial and provocative statements designed
to move the reader to listen to his or her own voice and ignore
societal pressures. Emerson’s perspective in the essay is
rooted in transcendentalist thought, especially in his emphasis
on the importance of the individual, reliance on intuition, the
underlying unity of everything, and the appreciation of nature.

Minor Characters

The Individual
The audience for Emerson’s essay. “The individual” refers to
ordinary Americans whose intuition is constantly assaulted by
self-doubt and societal pressures. Emerson exhorts the
individual to reject these pressures and to achieve greatness by
becoming self-reliant and trusting in intuition.

Society

The enemy of self-reliance. Society pressures individuals to

conform to social norms that oppress them. To Emerson,
society is worthy of scorn.

NatureTheme Analysis
Emerson and other transcendentalists believed that nature—
rather than society, institutions, or the Church—is the ultimate
source of truth about the self, God, and existence. As Emerson
put it in another essay he wrote, “The Foregoing generations
beheld God and Nature face to face; we—through their eyes.
Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the
universe.” In this quote, Emerson is saying that, while previous
generations connected directly to God and Nature, the modern
generation connects to those things only through the
institutional leavings of the previous generation. Emerson
advocates not settling for such an indirect connection, and he
argues that actually engaging with nature offers the means of
gaining that direct connection to existence, and, as a
consequence, a deeper understanding of the self and self-
reliance.

Emerson believes that “the sense of being which in calm hours

rises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from things,
from space, from light, from time, from man, but one with them,
and proceeds obviously from the same source whence their life
and being also proceed.” In this passage Emerson makes the
case for that unity of things, and describes the way that people
can experience those “calm hours” of nature in which they then
experience unity.

But Emerson sees nature as a great teacher in a different way

as well. He sees nature as providing the ultimate example of
what it means to be self-reliant. As Emerson describes it,
people should relate to the rest of
existence in the way that “blade of grass or the blowing rose”
do—there is “no time to them” and they “exist with God to-day,”
without dwelling on the past. However, Emerson continues:
“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.”
Further, Emerson states, the individual “cannot be happy and
strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.”

Emerson’s argument here underlies his view about the

falseness of the concept of “progress,” which involves a
measuring against the past and future, rather than an
engagement with the present. Emerson argues that God and
existence happen solely in the present, and that only in nature
can the individual see the present in its “richness.” The self-
reliant individual, though, attuned to nature and his (or her)
inner self, is connected to the present, and therefore to the
unity of everything. Emerson sees nature also as offering a
more practical model of self-sufficiency. “Power,” he states, “is
in nature the essential measure of right. Nature suffers nothing
to remain in her kingdoms which cannot help itself.” Nature
therefore offers a “demonstration of the self-sufficing, and
therefore self-relying soul.”

Emerson, of course, is also interested in human nature. But he

argues that society—with its pressures to conform and to
respect only what society itself teaches rather than what a
person actually intrinsically thinks or feels—actually takes
people out of their own nature. Emerson then argues that it is
possible to find examples of a self-reliant human nature by
paying attention to people that are closer to nature.  Emerson
sees babies and children as perfect examples of human nature
in touch with itself. He calls them "pretty oracles nature yields"
because they have not yet internalized societal expectations
and habits of thoughts that lead them to devalue emotion and
their own intuition. Celebrating the wilfullness of children,
Emerson playfully remarks that "[i]nfancy conforms to nobody:
all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five
out of the adults who prattle and play to it."

Emerson extends his example to boyhood by remarking that

the "nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would
disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one,
is the healthy attitude
of human nature." Like a baby, Emerson says, a boy is
"independent, irresponsible, looking out from his corner on such
people and facts as pass by, he tries and sentences them on
their merits, in the swift, summary way of boys, as good, bad,
interesting, silly, eloquent, troublesome. He cumbers himself
never about consequences, about interests: he gives an
independent, genuine verdict." Emerson adds that a grown man
in the grip of societal expectations, on the other hand is
"clapped into jail by his consciousness."

Emerson’s ideas about the individual, then, are closely

connected to his ideas about nature. Emerson’s self-sufficient
individual, in fact, is someone who is connected to and displays
the same sorts of traits as nature itself. Further, Emerson
argues that, despite the pressure to conform to
society, all people (even the most conformist) still display some
measure of self-reliance. As Emerson states, “no man can
violate his nature.” In other words, he is saying that while
conforming to societal expectations can warp or obscure a
person’s natural self-reliance, it can’t eliminate it entirely. And, if
people exercise that self-reliance, Emerson believes it will bring
them back into their original connection to nature. As puts it, if
individuals acknowledge that underlying nature, all of their
actions will be “honest and natural in their hour.”

Anti-Enlightenment Ideas and

American CultureTheme Analysis
Emerson wrote “Self-Reliance” in 1841. The United States had
won the Revolutionary War only 65 years earlier, and the
Constitution had existed for just 52 years. In other words, the
United States was still a very young nation, and Emerson
shared with many other American writers and thinkers a
preoccupation with finding and creating a uniquely American
culture, one that was not so dependent upon Europe. Most
thinkers of the earlier years of the United States had been
influenced by the European Enlightenment, a period of history
that roughly covers the eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
Enlightenment thinkers believed that reason was the most
important guide for human actions and that society, through the
application of reason, would improve and follow a steady
path of progress. They further believed that the past,
particularly the classical society of the Greeks and Romans,
could serve as a model for both society and the arts.

Emerson, however, rejects the pure practice of Enlightenment

ideals by the individual. Whimsy and inconsistency, which run
counter to the Enlightenment ideals of reason and order, are
virtues that Emerson believes can help the individual to
become a more self-reliant thinker. In fact, when Emerson
states that “[a] foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little
minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and
divines,” he is pointing out that holding ourselves up to such
standards of rationality can actually interfere with the ability to
be a great thinker.  In advancing spontaneity and inconsistency
as positive traits, Emerson (and transcendentalism more
generally) was embracing the tenets of Romanticism, a
nineteenth-century literary and cultural movement that placed
greater emphasis on spontaneity, irregularity, and emotion than
the Enlightenment movement that preceded it.

Emerson also rejects the Enlightenment view of history and

progress. Enlightenment thinkers had a deep belief in the
inevitability of progress if humanity would only rely on
rationality. Emerson rejects this idea, insisting instead that the
very idea of “progress” is false and damaging. At one point in
“Self-Reliance,” Emerson states that “[S]ociety never
advances.” In making this comment, Emerson isn’t saying that
things don’t change. Rather, he is implying that the changes we
see in society are not necessarily improvements. He is saying
that even as things change, they do not progress according to
the Enlightenment model. What we typically call progress is
not, to Emerson, progress at all. He compares “the well-clad,
reading, writing, thinking American, with … the naked New
Zealander, whose property is a club, a spear, a mat, and an
undivided twentieth of a shed to sleep under!” and claims that
the New Zealander is the healthier of the two. Emerson
believes that a person who might typically be called “primitive”
has, precisely because they are not surrounded by the “society”
and “progress” of modern life, a deeper connection with the
things that are truly important: nature and their own individual
selves.

Emerson’s hostility to Enlightenment ideals also seems to

emerge from a
belief that American genius will only grow once the culture
rejects the impulse to imitate Europe as a source of inspiration
and instead focuses on materials and inspiration that are closer
at hand. Just as Emerson believed that in “trusting thyself” a
person could gain self-reliance, he believed that if American
writers and artists would “trust” America and focus on elements
that are specific to an American geography, they could achieve
self-reliance in the artistic realm as well. According to Emerson,
“[I]f the American artist will study with hope and love the precise
thing to be done by him, considering the climate, the soil, the
length of the day, the wants of the people, the habit and form of
the government, he will create a house in which all these will
find themselves fitted, and taste and sentiment will be satisfied
also.” Emerson’s argument for American genius was typical of
the day. While the prevailing wisdom (in both America and
Europe) just after the turn of the century was that American
culture and arts were provincial, many American writers and
artists of this period sought to transform what was unique about
the United States into sources for a truly American culture.

Nonconformity, Morality, and

Individual GreatnessTheme
Analysis
In keeping with his transcendentalist beliefs, Emerson was
skeptical of forces that pushed the individual to conform
to society. Emerson’s rejection of society (including any of its
established institutions) as a source of truth and morality fit into
a broader historical moment occurring in America at the time
when Emerson was writing (in the 1830s and 1840s). The
Second Great Awakening, a religious revival movement,
rejected many of the faiths settlers had brought with them from
Europe and instead focused on spirituality as an emotional
experience found in personal communion with a higher power,
what Emerson would have seen as the Oversoul. Other
Americans embraced reform movements against slavery or
utopian ideals that sought truth outside the regular confines of
society, for example.

Those who rejected conventional morality were frequently met

with harsh criticism by more conservative forces in society. In
an America in which
such criticism could make the difference between having a
livelihood or not, and in which the local church was the central
site for organizing society, nonconformity was a brave but hard
choice. Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” is an exhortation to
Americans to refuse to conform despite the cost and a guide for
those who wonder what can take the place of traditional
morality.

Emerson’s rejection of conformity stems from his idea that

society is the source of immorality because it undercuts the
independence of the individual. Society is characterized by “the
smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times” and it
is the job of the individual to “hurl in the face of custom, and
trade, and office, the fact which is the upshot of all history, that
there is a great responsible Thinker and Actor working
wherever a man works.”  He argues that the greatest act of
morality is therefore to be a nonconformist. While Emerson saw
most of society as viewing morality in traditional, Christian
terms that focus on acts of faith as expressions of goodness,
he believes it is more moral to live by the light of one’s own
conscience.

He even goes so far as to reject conventional charity that is

motivated by conformity—that is, charity that is motivated by a
desire to appear like a “good person” to the rest of society”—as
being “a wicked Dollar which by and by I shall have the
manhood to withhold.” Emerson’s use of the word “manhood” to
describe his refusal to be dominated by social convention is
typical. Emerson often uses the nineteenth-century language of
manliness to encourage his readers to reject the constraints of
society. According to Emerson, a true, self-reliant man—one
who is independent in his opinions—is the equal of any other
person regardless of birth and is worthy of respect simply
because of his character. This definition stands in contrast to
the conventional ideal of the time of the “gentleman”—a man
who was respected by society because of his social standing,
his education, his good birth, his good reputation, and his ability
to demonstrate conventional good manners. Emerson claims
that “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist”
because merely conforming to societal dictates hampers the
ability of a person to be independent. According to this logic,
attempting to blend into society by honoring its constraints
leads the individual away from the ability to listen to his own
intuition, and thus “[s]ociety everywhere is in conspiracy against
the manhood of every one of its members.”

Emerson understands that this conspiracy makes the resolution

to be a nonconformist difficult because of societal pressures. 
Nevertheless, he believes that to achieve true independence
and greatness, the individual must learn not to fear the
disapproval of society. Emerson admits that regardless of his
actions, the individual will always be judged by society.
However, he argues that fear of such judgement should not be
taken into account since, as he puts it, “What I must do is all
that concerns me, not what the people think.... 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.” Furthermore, Emerson claims that trying to conform
to societal expectations wastes one’s energy and genius
because “it scatters your force.” He also argues that the
individual must not be afraid even “when the ignorant and the
poor are aroused, when the unintelligent brute force that lies at
the bottom of society is made to growl and mow.” Being willing
to offend the sensibilities of the common person on the street
is, in Emerson’s mind, the mark of greatness. Considering that
the common man was seen as the hero of American culture at
this point, Emerson’s call to ignore him is actually a call to go
against the grain of much of American culture of the day.

TranscendentalismTheme
Analysis
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.

AbolitionTerm Analysis
American political movement in support of ending the institution
of slavery in the US.

AntinomianismTerm Analysis
The belief that grace from God releases Christians from the
obligation of following moral laws.

EpigraphTerm Analysis
A short quotation or saying placed before the start of a work,
often in order to preview an important theme or subject in the
work.

DoricTerm Analysis
Ancient Greek architectural style characterized by thick, strong
columns and clean lines.

GothicTerm Analysis
Medieval European architectural style characterized by large
scale and ornate details, hence its association with buildings
like castles and cathedrals.
MonachismTerm Analysis
The retreat of religious people, such as monks or nuns, from
secular life
and into secluded communities devoted to worship and spiritual
acts.

Relief societyTerm Analysis

Nineteenth century charitable organizations, usually funded
through donations and supported with volunteer labor, designed
to provide relief to the poor and ill.

SwedenborgismTerm Analysis
Eighteenth century religious belief founded on the ideas of
Emmanuel Swedenborg, a Swiss theologian who believed that
Jesus Christ appeared to him in visions and who believed that
a new, reform-minded church would be founded to replace the
contemporary Christian church.

WhigsTerm Analysis
Nineteenth century American political party that opposed the
presidency of Andrew Jackson.

Self-Reliance Summary
Emerson opens his essay with three epigraphs that preview the
theme of self-reliance in the essay. He then begins the essay
by reflecting on how often an individual has some great insight,
only to dismiss it because it came from their own imagination.
According to Emerson, we should prize these flashes of
individual insight even more than those of famous writers and
philosophers; it is the mature thinker who eventually realizes
that originality of thought, rather than imitation of what everyone
else believes, is the way to greatness.

Emerson then argues that the most important realization any

individual can have is that they should trust themselves above
all others. Babies,
children, and even animals are intuitively aware of this fact,
according to Emerson, and so are worthy of imitation. Emerson
sees self-reliance as a characteristic of boys, too, with their
independent attitudes, lack of respect for authority, and
willingness to pass judgment on everything they encounter.

Emerson then shifts to a discussion of the relationship between

the individual and society by noting that when we are alone, we
can be like babies or children, but when we get out into the
world, that little voice inside that carries our truth slips away.
Emerson argues that people must embrace nonconformity to
recover their self-reliance, even if doing so requires the
individual to reject what most people believe is goodness.
Emerson believes that there is a better kind of virtue than the
opinions of respected people or demands for charity for the
needy. This goodness comes from the individual’s own intuition,
and not what is visible to society.

Besides, states Emerson, living according to the world’s notion

of goodness seems easy, and living according to one’s own
notions of goodness is easy in solitude, but it takes a truly
brave person to live out one’s own notions of goodness in the
face of pressure from society. Although it might seem easier to
just go along with the demands of society, it is harder because
it scatters one’s force. Aware that being a nonconformist is
easier argued than lived, Emerson warns that the individual
should be prepared for disapproval from people high and low
once he or she finally refuses to conform to society’s dictates. It
will be easy to brush off the polite disapproval of cultivated
people, but the loud and rough disapproval of common people,
the mob, will require all of the individual’s inner resources to
face down.

The other thing Emerson sees as a roadblock to the would-be

nonconformist is the world’s obsession with consistency. Really
though, he argues, why should you be bound at all by your past
actions or fear contradicting yourself? Emerson notes that
society has made inconsistency into a devil, and the result is
small-mindedness. He uses historical and religious examples to
point out that every great person we have ever known refused
to be bound by the past. If you want to be great,
he says, embrace being misunderstood just like them. Emerson
argues that the individual should have faith that inconsistency is
an appearance only, since every action always reflects an
underlying harmony that is rooted in one’s own individuality. So
long as the individual is true to themselves, their actions will be
authentic and good.

Given his arguments in the first part of the essay, Emerson

hopes by now that everyone realizes how ridiculous conformity
is and the negative impact it is having on American culture. He
describes American culture of the day as one of mediocrity that
can only be overcome with the recognition that in each
individual is a little bit of the universe, of God, and that
wherever the individual lives authentically, God is to be found.
Emerson believes people tap into that truth, into justice, and
into wisdom by sitting still and letting the underlying reality that
grounds us and all creation speak through us in the form of
intuition. Everything else—time, space, even the past—appears
as something apart from the underlying reality only because of
our habits of thinking. Emerson counsels that people can
escape that way of thinking by living in the present like plants
do, and, like everything in nature, expressing one’s self against
all comers.

Emerson laments that his society has lost all sense of what it
means to be self-reliant individuals. He describes his historical
moment as a weak one that has birthed no great people, and
city boys seeking professions quit as soon as they are
confronted with an initial failure. Emerson admires the country
boy who tries thing after thing, not at all concerned about any
failure or conforming to society; these are the kinds of people
Emerson believes will make America’s history. If the individual
wants to achieve true virtue, Emerson argues, they must go to
war against anything that oppresses their sense of individuality,
even if people accuse them of gross immorality as a result.
Taking care to meet their idea of their duties to loved ones or
even to themselves will vindicate them and maybe even bring
people around to their way of seeing. Ultimately, Emerson
believes that living in this state of war against society is actually
true virtue.

Emerson closes his essay by applying the abstract concept of

self-reliance to specifics. He believes that self-reliance can
revolutionize every part of society if we let it: We should quit
praying for something outside
of ourselves to save us and instead act. We should quit
subordinating our experiences to religions and philosophies
and instead listen to our intuition. Emerson argues that
Americans especially should stop traveling abroad to become
cultured and instead create their own arts, literature, and
culture using the materials we find right here at home. Emerson
believes that progress is beside the point: we should quit
pushing for it because it only saps our strength; society does
not progress in a straight line. Emerson argues that people
should stop locating their identities in property and instead
understand that the most valuable part of a man is inside of
him. Self-reliance can even be applied to politics: Emerson
argues that we should quit governing ourselves by political
parties and instead have each man govern himself by intuition.
Emerson concludes by noting that self-reliance is the true path
to peace.

Section Summary

While Emerson does not formally do so, scholars

conventionally organize Self-Reliance into three sections: the
value of and barriers to self-reliance (paragraph 1-17), self-
reliance and the individual (paragraph 18-32), and self-reliance
and society (paragraph 33-50).

The Value of and Barriers to Self-Reliance (paragraph 1-17)

Emerson opens his essay with the assertion, "To believe in your
own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private
heart is true for all men, - that is genius." His statement
captures the essence of what he means by "self-reliance,"
namely the reliance upon one's own thoughts and ideas. He
argues individuals, like Moses, Plato, and Milton, are held in the
highest regard because they spoke what they thought. They did
not rely on the words of others, books, or tradition.
Unfortunately, few people today do so; instead, "he dismisses
without notice his thought, because it is his."
If we do not listen to our own mind, someone else will say what
we think and feel, and “we shall be forced to take with shame
our own opinion from another.” Emerson thus famously
counsels his reader to "Trust thyself." In other words, to accept
one's destiny, "the place the divine providence has found for
you, the society of your contemporaries, the
connection of events." If such advice seems easier said than
done, Emerson prompts his reader to recall the boldness of
youth.

Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and

when we look in their faces we are disconcerted. Infancy
conforms to nobody; all conform to it; so that one babe
commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and
play to it. So God has armed youth and puberty and manhood
no less with its own piquancy and charm, and made it enviable
and gracious and its claims not be put by, if it will stand by
itself.

The difficulty of trusting our own mind lies in the conspiracy of

society against the individual, for society valorizes conformity.
As a youth, we act with independence and irresponsibility, and
issue verdicts based on our genuine thought. We are
unencumbered by thoughts about consequences or interests.
However, as we grow older, society teaches us to curb our
thoughts and actions, seek the approval of others, and concern
ourselves with names, reputations, and customs. What some
would call "maturity," Emerson would call "conformity."

To be a self-reliant individual then, one must return to the

neutrality of youth, and be a nonconformist. For a
nonconformist, "No law can be sacred to me but that of my
nature. 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.” Emerson does not advocate
nonconformity for the sake of rebellion per se, but rather so the
world may know you for who are, and so you may focus your
time and efforts on reinforcing your character in your own
terms.

However, the valorization of conformity by society is not the

only barrier to self-reliance. According to Emerson, another
barrier is the fear for our own consistency: "a reverence for our
past act or word because the eyes of others have no other data
for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loth to
disappoint them.” Rather than act with a false consistency to a
past memory, we must always live in the present. We must
become, rather than simply be. Emerson famously argues, "A
foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by
little statesmen and philosophers and divines." While acting
without regard to consistency may lead to us being
misunderstood, the self-reliant
individual would be in good company. "Pythagoras was
misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and
Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise
spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."

Self-Reliance and the Individual (paragraph 18-32)

In this section, Emerson expounds on how individuals can

achieve self-reliance.

As mentioned earlier, to live self-reliantly with genuine thought

and action, one must "trust thyself." In other words, one must
trust in the nature and power of our inherent capacity for
independence, what Emerson calls, "Spontaneity" or "Instinct" -
the "essence of genius, of virtue, and of life." This Spontaneity
or Instinct is grounded in our Intuition, our inner knowledge,
rather than "tuitions," the secondhand knowledge we learn from
others. In turn, Emerson believed our Intuition emerged from
the relationship between our soul and the divine spirit (i.e.,
God). To trust thyself means to also trust in God.

To do so is more difficult than it sounds. It is far easier to follow

the footprints of others, to live according to some known or
accustomed way. A self-reliant life "shall be wholly strange and
new. It shall exclude example and experience. You take the
way from man, not to man."

As such, one must live as courageously as a rose.

Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares

not say, “I think,” “I am,” but instead quotes some saint or sage.
He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose.
These roses under my window make no reference to former
roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist
with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the
rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence… 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. He
cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the
present, above time.
To live in the present with nature and God, one must not worry
about the past or future, compare oneself to others, or rely on
words and thoughts not one's own.

Self-Reliance and Society (paragraph 33-50)

In the concluding paragraphs of Self-Reliance, Emerson argues

self-reliance must be applied to all aspects of life, and
illustrates how such an application would benefit society. “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.”

In regard to religion, Emerson believes a lack of self-reliance

has led prayers to become “a disease of the will” and creeds “a
disease of the intellect.” People pray to an external source for
some foreign addition to their life, whereby prayer acts as a
means to a private end, such as for a desired commodity. In
this way, prayer has become a form of begging. However,
prayer should be a way to contemplate life and unite with God
(i.e., to trust thyself and also in God). Self-reliant individuals do
not pray for something, but rather embody prayer (i.e.,
contemplation and unification with God) in all their actions. “The
prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer
of the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers
heard throughout nature, though for cheap ends.”

Emerson also believes true prayer involves an avoidance of

regret and discontent, which indicate a personal “infirmity of
will,” as well as of sympathy for the suffering of others, which
only prolongs their own infirmity, and instead should be handled
with truth and health to return them to their reason.

As for creeds, his critique focuses on how those who cling to

creeds obey the beliefs of a powerful mind other than their own,
rather than listen to how God speaks through their own minds.
In this way, they disconnect with the universe, with God,
because the creed becomes mistaken for the universe.
In regard to education, Emerson asserts the education system
fosters a restless mind that causes people to travel away from
themselves in hope of finding something greater than what they
know or have. Educated Americans desire to travel to foreign
places like Italy, England, and Egypt for amusement and
culture. They build and decorate their houses with foreign taste,
their minds to the Past and the Distant. Artists imitate the Doric
or the Gothic model. Yet, Emerson reminds us, “They who
made England, Italy, or Greece venerable in the imagination,
did so by sticking fast where they were, like an axis of the
earth.” One should not yearn for or imitate that which is foreign
to oneself, for “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… Every great man is unique.” (Emerson
develops these ideas further in his essay, The
American Scholar, which calls for the creation of a uniquely
American cultural identity distinct from European traditions.)

Finally, Emerson addresses the “spirit of society.” According to

Emerson, “society never advances.” Civilization has not led to
the improvement of society because with the acquisition of new
arts and technologies comes the loss of old instincts. For
example, “The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the
use of his feet… He has a fine Geneva watch, but he fails of
the skill to tell the hour by the sun.” Society merely changes
and shifts like a wave. While a “wave moves onward… the
water which it is composed does not.” As such, people are no
greater than they ever were, and should not smugly rest on the
laurels of past artistic and scientific achievements. They must
instead actively work to achieve self-reliance, which entails a
return to oneself, and liberation from the shackles of the
religious, learned, and civil institutions that create a debilitating
reliance on property (i.e., things external from the self).

Emerson concludes, “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”

Detailed Analysis:From Litcharts.

Describe the various facets of Transcendentalism.

Transcendentalism was in part an ethical and religious reformist
movement that rejected "historical Christianity" for a more direct
connection with a universal soul (i.e., God or Reason), an
impersonal force that operated according to "the moral law,"
grounded in everyday experiences with nature in the present. It
was also an aesthetic, literary, and philosophical treatise
molded by ancient and modern influences, including Idealism,
Stoicism, German and English Romanticism (e.g., Goethe,
Wordsworth, Carlyle), Skepticism (e.g., Hume), Biblical criticism
(e.g., Herder, Schleiermacher), Eastern religion and philosophy,
and the mystical philosophy of Emanuel Swedenborg. Finally, it
was a social and political commentary that resisted established
conventions (e.g., American slavery), sought modes of
rethinking the relationship between humanity and the world,
and engaged contemporary readers in the process of identity
formation.

What does Emerson mean by "self-reliance"? How does

one achieve it? What stands in the way?

Emerson emphasized the need for individuals to avoid

conformity and false consistency, and instead follow their own
instincts and ideas. Emerson famously counsels his reader to
"Trust thyself." In other words, to accept one's destiny, "the
place the divine providence has found for you, the society of
your contemporaries, the connection of events." The difficulty of
trusting our own mind lies in the conspiracy of society against
the individual, for society valorizes conformity. Another barrier is
the fear for our own consistency.

What does Emerson mean when he writes the

aphorism,"envy is ignorance,imitation is suicide"?
In this essay, Emerson encourages each person to live by their
own principles. He exhorts the readers to rely on themselves
for their ideas and values and goals, rather than listening to
what other people say they should think, value, or strive for.
The person who is self-reliant is one who is, ultimately, more
mature and happy and satisfied with life than one who fails to
listen to themselves and to learn what makes them unique and
worthy.
Thus, Emerson says,

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.

In other words, this realization only comes once one has

reached a certain level of maturity: when we envy another
person, we remain in ignorance of ourselves and what we
have to offer; further, when we imitate another person,
perhaps out of envy, we kill the independent and unique
part of ourselves. This is because we are trying to be
something we are not.

Each of us must accept who we are—the good and the bad—

because we can do nothing real and true and lasting until we
work with what gifts each of us is given. We must, to use
Emerson's metaphor, till our own plot of ground, developing it
and seeing what will grow there. When we try to plant what
someone else has planted, so to speak, we do a disservice to
our plot. Often, we might be better suited to growing something
different, perhaps even something new.

What did Emerson mean by"Self reliance"?What were his

major points?

In his essay on “self-reliance,” Ralph Waldo Emerson

emphasizes the importance of trusting one’s own conscience;
only by doing so can one realistically expect to maintaining
one’s personal integrity. Everyone is constantly faced by social
pressures to conform and follow a path that other people have
established. While this option may seem easier or cause one
less inner anguish, unthinking adherence to other people’s
ideas and expectations will rarely yield good results.

While we might think of self-reliance as primarily supporting

oneself economically, Emerson, in this essay, focuses on
spiritual and intellectual
self-reliance as the highest good. He states this early on,
writing:

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you
in your private heart is true for all men,—that is genius.

Emerson assumes that his audience will be economically self-

sufficient; it is not having any job, but instead finding one's
destined vocation that matters. For that reason, he advises the
young person to listen to his or her own inner voice and follow
its dictates. This means throwing off the yoke of conformity and
being true to oneself.

Emerson urges his listeners to trust their inner voice deeply and
wholly. He argues that doing so is the only way to find inner
peace and the only way to make a lasting mark on the world.
He goes so far as to advise that individuals not be swayed
when people suggest their inner voices might come from an evil
rather than a divine source:

They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil’s child,

I will live then from the Devil. No law can be sacred to me but
that of my nature.

Emerson's essay assumes, as a matter of course, that there is

a God directing our actions. We find what God has meant for us
to do with our lives by looking inward, to our own souls, rather
than outward to tradition or social and religious norms. When
we overcome the initial resistance we (and others) feel to
following our own path, we find our true destiny. When that
happens, people will be attracted to us and support us in our
cause.

What does Emerson say about society?

In "Self-Reliance," Emerson has no kind words regarding

society. He essentially sees society as the bane of the
individual, poisonous to every person's potential to grow into a
unique person:

Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of

every one 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.

The term "joint-stock company" literally refers to companies

whose stock is wholly owned by the shareholders. By
comparing society to such an entity, Emerson is claiming that
people who dedicate themselves to pleasing society essentially
surrender all their liberty to it. They become owned by society
rather being fully themselves.

Emerson argues that most people are capable of thinking

independently when they are alone—that is, when they are not
concerned with other people's judgments. However, in a group
setting, the individual often wonders what the group will think of
what they have to say, and they tailor their ideas accordingly. In
some scenarios, such compromise is a virtue, but Emerson is
talking about people's tendency to commit themselves to
values and ideas they do not themselves believe in for the sake
of social conformity.

Ultimately, Emerson wants his readers to stop valuing the

opinion of society, which tends to be shallow and stagnant in its
thinking. He stresses the importance of the integrity of one's
own mind, even at the cost of being misunderstood.

What does Emerson mean by,"whose would be a man must

be a nonconformist"?
In Emerson's thought, to become a "man" means to reach
one's true or highest potential. Emerson, who is addressing
young men just out of college, draws a distinction between
merely entering adulthood and finding one's highest destiny.

The person who reaches his highest potential can only do so by

not conforming to a preset plan for his life. It can be easy to
step into the role, for example, of taking over the family farm or
business or of following a family tradition of entering law school.
A true man, however, does not simply unthinkingly follow
someone else's plan. Instead, as the essay lays out in some
detail, one must do the harder work of looking inward. What
does your soul tell you it wants you to do? What makes the iron
string of whoever you are "vibrate" with longing? This is the
path to
follow.

The divine force has a destiny for every person, and it is up to

that individual to find it. Following this destiny is most often
going to mean not conforming to what other people, family, or
society thinks is the safe, secure, and acceptable path.

Emerson points to people such as Jesus, Buddha, and Galileo

as individuals who did not conform. By following their inner
destinies, they changed society in profound ways. Emerson
urges his audience to take the harder path, just as they did, as
this will lead to the greater good.

What is the relationship between people,nature and god in

"self reliance"?
According to Ralph Waldo Emerson, there is a close
interrelationship among individuals, nature, and God.

In "Self-Reliance," Emerson reiterates some of his ideas

from Nature such as the belief that the man who communicates
with Nature is brought to higher thought and "a better emotion."
For Nature assuages his troubles by taking a man outside
himself to reconnect with the grandeur of divine creation (God).
Further in "Self-Reliance," Emerson also states, "Accept the
place that Providence has found for you," as he emphasizes
the uniqueness and individuality of every man. Emerson urges
individuals to rail against Society that is in "conspiracy" against
the manhood of the individual because it demands the
individual to "surrender his liberty and [the] culture of the eater."

In his inspiring essay, "Self-Reliance," Emerson urges men to

distance themselves from the "joint-stock company" of society
so that they can trust themselves and hear the voices of Nature
and God. For to be a man, one must be a non-conformist open
to the messages that are divine, and not those of conspiratorial
men.
Explain the quote,"Society everywhere is in conspiracy
aganist the manhood of everyone of its members".
In Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance," the main idea is
that the individual should exist apart from society. In other
words, people should be themselves completely and not seek
to conform to social norms.
The quotation "Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the
manhood of every one of its members" is a strong statement.
The way Emerson describes society here makes it into an
antagonist that is actively working against individuals. Society
"conspires" to get individuals to conform to its expectations.
When he says "manhood," Emerson seems to mean
individuality, but the connotation is also that society
emasculates individuals when it asks them to conform. This
implies that individuals are weaker when they aspire to be liked
or approved of by others; they are stronger when they behave
according to their instincts. In a similar quote, Emerson claims,
"For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure."
The verb "whips" connotes the violent reaction of society
against nonconformists and indicates that those who dare to be
themselves risk punishment from the community. 

Elsewhere in "Self-Reliance," Emerson furthers the idea by

saying that the individual not only should not concern himself
with loyalty to social norms, but he also has no obligation to
conform to any idea of consistency in his own being. In a
famous passage, Emerson asks, "Do I contradict myself? Very
well, then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes."
He indicates here that to be an individual is to be complex.
There is no need to be "consistent" to some false idea of who
one is, just as it is foolish and unnecessary to mold oneself to a
social ideal. 

What is Emerson's opinion on consistency and

conformity?
Ralph Waldo Emerson was vehemently opposed to consistency
and conformity. In his famous essay, "Self-Reliance," Emerson
writes that in order to be a man, one must be a nonconformist.
He states that self-reliance is considered conformity's aversion
and encourages the reader to form their own opinions instead
of conforming to the status quo. Emerson valued originality,
authenticity, and independent thought. He wrote that conformity
scatters one's force and blurs the impression of one's
character. Emerson believed that a person should look within
themselves for direction and inspiration as opposed to imitating
others and conforming to society.

In regards to consistency, Emerson believed that individuals

should act upon whatever their conscience dictates at any
particular time. He felt
that as long as an individual's tendencies were natural and
honest, their actions would be genuine. Emerson wrote,

"The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our

consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the
eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than
our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them" (6).

He comments that individuals should not worry about

contradicting themselves and being viewed as hypocrites for
their new thoughts. Emerson encourages us to accept our new
ideas and embrace our inconsistent nature. Emerson refers to
consistency as a "hobgoblin of little minds" and believes that
our overall inconsistencies are actually symmetrical when
viewed from a different perspective. He writes,

"The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred

tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens
itself to the average tendency" (7).

Emerson encourages individuals to focus on the present and

reject the idea of maintaining a consistent nature. 

What is the main idea of self reliance?

The most important idea in "Self-Reliance" is that of
individualism. Emerson emphasizes that it is one's primary duty
to trust one's own instincts, express oneself, and give to the
world the gifts and perspective that one is unique in
possessing.

Emerson supports this idea with numerous principles and

examples. He says that the great men of history who are widely
imitated were never themselves imitators. Moses, Plato, and
Milton were not guided by tradition nor by the opinions of those
around them; instead, they relied on themselves and said
exactly what they thought.
One of Emerson's guiding principles in the essay is that
individuals should look after their own development rather than
embarking on programs of social reform. Virtue resides in the
individual, and individuals should draw it out of themselves.
Emerson also warns against wanting to be—or be seen to be—
consistent. He believes this desire will lead to conformity. One
should refuse to be influenced by what others think and what
one used to think oneself. The famous phrase "a foolish
consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" expresses
Emerson's view that consistency is the enemy of development
and improvement.

Finally, Emerson says that one should not pay much attention
to external events but should always remain true to one's own
conscience and principles.

What does Ralph Waldo Emerson mean when he

says,"And we are now men, and must accept in the highest
mind the same transcedent destiny".
To understand this line from "Self-Reliance," we have to put it in
context. Emerson is urging the reader to listen to his own
intuitive insights, and not put them aside because he doubts his
ability to discern the truth.

"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. Yet he dismisses without
notice his thought, because it is his."

He points out that both children and "great men" have in

common a confidence in their own intuitions and insights:

"Great men have always done so, and confided themselves

childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception
that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart,
working through their hands, predominating in all their being."

This leads to the line in question. Emerson has explained what

great men do. They trust in themselves, like children. Once, we
were children, and so we possessed this trait of confidence and
self-trust.

"And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the
same transcendent destiny…"
In other words, as adults, we must embrace this childlike trait,
and employ our most elevated form of thought to achieve
transcendence -- going beyond the limits of the concrete world
to appreciate the higher spiritual reality.

To underscore this message of reconnecting with one's childlike

self-reliance, Emerson talks further about this virtue in boys.
They aren't as oppressed by the pressure to censor
themselves. They don't restrain themselves from saying or
following through on what they believe, and this, says Emerson
is a "healthy attitude of human nature." It's only later, as we
grow up, that we stop listening to our inner voices.

"These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow
faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. "

And that, says, Emerson, is antithetical to our true purpose.

God meant us to trust in our truthful, individualistic voices, and
follow them to discover what really matters.

What does the quote,"Every heart is tuned to that

string"mean?
Let's take a closer look at the full quotation from Emerson:

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string

Emerson explains fairly explicitly what he means by this

comment. In writing on the virtues of individualism and self-
reliance—virtues which had been championed by various
previous poetic movements, including Romanticism—Emerson
is stipulating that we must trust ourselves because each
person's heart "vibrates" according to one's own values and
determination. The "power" within each person, a power which
sets the string of one's heart trembling, is completely different
to any power that has previously existed in any other person.
Emerson uses musical imagery to underscore this fact: just as
a string will vibrate to a different pitch depending on how
loosely or tightly it is tuned, and will sound differently depending
on the "power" with which it is struck, each person makes a
different impact upon the world and is guided by one's own
particular sense of self.
What are some of the barries to self reliance by Emerson?

The two great barriers to self-reliance, according to Emerson,

are the chief evils of conformity and consistency. Emerson saw
society as a massive barrier to individuals achieving self-
reliance through the way that it encourages everybody to
conform to the tenets of society, which Emerson argued
prevented individuals becoming independent. Conformity
meant ascribing to an ideal of community and togetherness that
does not allow man to stand on his own two feet and, in
Emerson's words, "Trust thyself." In addition, consistency is the
other evil that prevents self-reliance, as the following quote
explores:

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. Speak what you think now
in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in
hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-
day.

Consistency is such a problem because people get stuck in a

rut, Emerson argues, doing and thining the same things day in
and day out, and this prevents them from being true to
themselves in the same way that conformity does precisely
because they are unable to break out of that rut and think
alternative thoughts and do alternative things. Just after this
quote, Emerson argues that people are consistent because
they are afraid that if they suddenly think something else they
will be misunderstood, yet Emerson says that "To be great is to
be misunderstood," pointing towards the truth that greatness
and genius are often not recognised as such by others. The two
great barriers that Emerson identifies as stopping people from
achieving self-reliance therefore are conformity, in the way that
the majority of people get a job, settle down and pay their
taxes, and consistency, which is shown through people
following a very similar routine day in and day out, and thinking
very similar thoughts, being afraid to embrace any difference.

In self reliance what does,"the eye was placed where one

ray should fall
mean"?
In "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson, the author
encourages people to be self-reliant in seeking their future, as
the title suggests. Each person is distinct and individual and
must follow his or her own individual steps. Specifically, the
author urges people to listen to their inner self and follow their
own path rather than the path they see others following or the
path they believe society dictates for them. Do not look at
others, according to the author, and think their path is the right
one and so envy them. The wise man understands this, as
Emerson writes:

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.

“[T]hat envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide” suggests that

to follow another person’s—or society’s—path is suicide
because it kills individuality and the reader’s ability to realize his
or her own true realities. Moreover, to envy or imitate others is
a sign of ignorance because the truly educated person
recognizes that they will only be fulfilled if they follow their
individual path. Each person has their own “new” and personal
contribution to make. Emerson continues in that same
paragraph:

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. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact,
makes much impression on him, and another none. This
sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony.
The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might
testify of that particular ray.
In writing, “The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it
might testify of that particular ray,” Emerson suggests that there
is a reason that one person sees possibility in something, while
another does not. In other words, one person sees the life of a
city dweller and desires it, while another regards farm life as
ideal. Emerson stresses that each person
should be self-reliant. Each person should follow their own
goals and realize their own individual strengths and not merely
be social conformists.

What does Emerson means when he says,"To be great is

to be misunderstood"?
This passage relates to Emerson's central theme of
nonconformity. He defines greatness as the ability to think apart
from the crowd and to not give into certain ideas just because
the majority believes in them. Of course, to think differently is to
risk being viewed with hostility—to be "misunderstood," as
Emerson puts it.

People do not always respond well to change or to new ideas.

Often, fresh or revolutionary views are misunderstood by the
greater public and rejected at first, such as Darwin's theory of
evolution by natural selection. This theory was initially mocked
and miscomprehended, with some even thinking that Darwin
literally believed human beings had once been monkeys. It took
decades for the greater public to grasp the nuances of his ideas
and for evolution to be accepted by the larger culture.

In "Self-Reliance," Emerson references several revolutionary

thinkers familiar to people from his own time, such as Jesus of
Nazareth and Isaac Newton. By mentioning these famous and
admired historical figures, Emerson hopes to make his
audience less frightened of being different from the crowd.
Emerson is essentially saying that even if one is misunderstood
or shunned by the masses for believing differently from
everyone else, one is in good company.

What are Emerson's view on Philanthropy?

Emerson has a somewhat shocking view of philanthropy. He
writes:

I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar,

the dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me
and to whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to
whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought and sold; for them I
will go to prison, if need be; but your miscellaneous popular
charities; the education at college of fools; the building of
meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now stand; alms
to sots; and the thousandfold Relief Societies; — though I
confess
with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a
wicked dollar which by and by I shall have the manhood to
withhold.

What Emerson means in this passage is that he objects to

giving to causes and people he doesn't have direct experience
of. He is glad to give to people he knows well and who he feels
share his sensibilities and way of looking at the world. They are
worth his effort, and he would even go so far as to allow himself
to be imprisoned for them.

This kind of direct charity, he suggests, comes from the heart

and is real and genuine. It makes the soul vibrate. Simply
giving to good causes, on the other hand, is living in a
secondhand way. It is like going into a career you feel
lukewarm about only because it is what your family expects you
to do. It is rote and conformist, and Emerson questions whether
it does any good for society in the end.

Themes Of Self Reliance

Self-reliance in this essay is not about taking care of the

externals of life, such as food, shelter, and clothing. Instead, it
is about the state of one's soul: Emerson strongly advocates
for trusting one's inner promptings and following what they
say about one's vocation in life.

Emerson states that a person should be a non-conformist as

he embarks on life, not looking to do what is conventional or
expected, but rather following what his soul dictates:

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the
place the divine providence has found for you, the society of
your contemporaries, the connection of events.

According to Emerson, each person is born with a destiny

implanted in him by God and will be unhappy until he
fulfills it. The essay thus argues in favor of individualism:
society can impede this, so it is important to cultivate solitude to
discern one's true path, then follow that path back into society:

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people
think. This
rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve
for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is
the harder, because you will always find those who think they
know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the
world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to
live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of
the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of
solitude.

One must be original and true to oneself in order to find true

contentment in life. Non-conformity doesn't mean just doing
whatever you feel like in some hippie-dippy way, but instead
means discerning, beneath material gain or the easy way out,
what you are meant to do in life and doing it, even it's hard and
people criticize you. There is no other way to live to one's
highest potential or to find peace:

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring
you peace but the triumph of principles.

Individualism in self reliance

Emerson defines an individual as a person who has learned to
"Trust [his or her] self." The real individual knows that "envy is
ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for
better, for worse." Emerson believes that "divine providence
has found" a place for each and every person, and a true
individual accepts that place, including the time and place in
which he or she lives. He claims that society abhors self-
reliance and that society "loves not realities and creators, but
names and customs."

Yet, whoever "would be a man must be a nonconformist." The

person who conforms to society's values and attitudes
uncritically is not an individual. Only the individual's own nature
can be "sacred" to him, and that is the code he or she must
follow. The true individual relies on himself to know what is right
and good and does not need society to define it for him. It is
this very self-reliance, in fact, that defines the individual.

Because society relies on conformity and consistency to a great

extent, the individual may be quite unpopular, even alienated,
as a result of his
reliance on self rather than society. People might think the
individual is odd or unpleasant, for "to be great is to be
misunderstood." Consequently, one's contemporary society
may not be generally affected by the individual, but the
individual very well may affect the future. "Greatness," Emerson
claims, "appeals to the future." Thus, individuals do affect
society, but they are more likely to impact the society of the
future than their own.