100+ Emerson Self-Reliance Quotes to Inspire Confidence & Independence

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

“Envy is ignorance; imitation is suicide.”

“Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.”

“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.”

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”

“For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure.”

“Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little men.”

“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.”

“The power which is at me is new in nature, and none can anticipate my act.”

“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”

“I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, thereto to be content.”

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”

“Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions.”

“Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.”

“Insist on yourself; never imitate.”

“There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance.”

“We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.”

“No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.”

“The magnetism which all original action exerts is due to the circumstance that the actor sees above the traits which you do.”

“The way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new.”

“The highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is, that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men but what they thought.”

“The soul becomes,” he writes, “a thing of force, and, as I was saying, the sun shines through it.”

“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.”

“Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.”

“He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness.”

“The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is that it scatters your force.”

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

“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.”

“Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood?”

“Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton.”

“Misunderstood! Every master was so.”

“To be great is to be misunderstood.”

“The sour faces of the multitude, like their sweet faces, have no deep cause—down at the bottom, they accept you as their own.”

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”

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

“Our first lessons have the easiest manners.”

“Men such as they are very naturally believe, though they do not talk much about it, that they inhabit a penny planet.”

“They are content with a little charity, a few straws of grain, a corner to sit in, and a portion to eat.”

“They look upon themselves as strangers and pilgrims in their own house.”

“But the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

“The power which is at me is new in nature.”

“None can anticipate my act.”

“Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age.”

“The imitator dooms himself to servitude.”

“The reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance.”

“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”

“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 is at me is new in nature, and none can anticipate my act.”

“Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again.”

“Though I confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar instead of taking the order.”

“But if you can stand fast and utter the verdict of your own being, then others must come to you.”

“I remember I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.”

“If you would know God, be not therefore a Trinitarian or a Unitarian, but see that you are a miracle and that every man is a miracle.”

“When good is near you, when you have life in yourself,—it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall not discern the footprints of any other.”

“All that is made confers on you a certain benefit, yet not so great as yourself.”

“The magnetism which all original action exerts is due to the circumstance that the actor sees above the traits which you do.”

“The way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new.”

“Why drag about this corpse of your memory, lest you contradict somewhat you have stated in this or that public place?”

“The virtue in most request is conformity.”

“Self-reliance is nothing but truth.”

“It is a deliverance which does not deliver.”

“He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness.”

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

“The reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance.”

“The prayers of the devout are heard nowhere distinctly but in the soul.”

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

“But if you are true, but if you are nothing,—then you cannot be broken.”

“No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.”

“The voyage of the best ship is dash'd with storms.”

“We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.”

“The power which is at me is new in nature, and none can anticipate my act.”

“Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions.”

“Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet.”

“Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy.”

“But the man in the street, finding no worth in himself, feels poor when he looks on these men.”

“The magnetism which all original action exerts is due to the circumstance that the actor sees above the traits which you do.”

“The way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new.”

“He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness.”

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

“The reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance.”

“The prayers of the devout are heard nowhere distinctly but in the soul.”

“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.”

“Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

“If you would know God, be not therefore a Trinitarian or a Unitarian, but see that you are a miracle and that every man is a miracle.”

“When good is near you, when you have life in yourself,—it is not by any known or accustomed way.”

“You shall not discern the footprints of any other.”

“The way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new.”

“The power which is at me is new in nature, and none can anticipate my act.”

“All that is made confers on you a certain benefit, yet not so great as yourself.”

“The magnetism which all original action exerts is due to the circumstance that the actor sees above the traits which you do.”

“The voyage of the best ship is dash'd with storms.”

“But if you are true, but if you are nothing,—then you cannot be broken.”

“I must not forget that all space is sacred, and all time is sacred.”

“But the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

“In the woods, we return to reason and faith.”

“There I feel that nothing can befall me in life,—no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair.”

“Standing on the bare ground,—my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean egotism vanishes.”

“I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.”

“The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental.”

“To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society.”

“I am not solitary while I read and write, though nobody is with me.”

“The soul becomes a thing of force, and, as I was saying, the sun shines through it.”

“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”

“We court the Muses only in our idle hours.”

“Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.”

“The power which is at me is new in nature, and none can anticipate my act.”

“Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet.”

“Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy.”

“But the man in the street, finding no worth in himself, feels poor when he looks on these men.”

“The magnetism which all original action exerts is due to the circumstance that the actor sees above the traits which you do.”

“The way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new.”

“He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness.”

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

“The reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance.”

“The prayers of the devout are heard nowhere distinctly but in the soul.”

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