Favorite Inspirational Quotes

from Self-Reliance

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 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. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is easier for governments to govern and large corporations to sell their products if all the people in a society are the same with the same thoughts, wants and education. In fact, education is one way the government creates this cohesive whole.

And because people want to move up the rungs of society, or seek to live off the government, they do not want to rock the boat and have the bread taken from their mouths or the mouths of their children. So they conform.

Emerson believes that self-reliance is the opposite of conforming. I believe he means being self-reliant in your own thoughts as to what is good and right. On the whole, those who change the world are not the ones who conform and do what everyone else is doing. That’s just being part of a mob.

They are instead those who seek out their own paths. They do not follow the customs and mores of the society they live in. They are the creators who think differently than those around them.

Don’t let what society tells you is right and good to be the guideposts of your life. Emerson says we must explore if this is goodness, if the way we live, think, work, worship, etc., is right. Don’t just do something because everyone is doing it and it is expected. You must explore with your own mind and heart if it is right and goodness for you. You must be rely on your own judgment and not what others, society, tells you.