Saturday, January 29, 2011

EMERSON AND SELF-RELIANCE

Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803 - 1882


One of my oldest possessions is a two-volume set of the collected essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson.  From the first serious reading of those essays as a college freshman, I knew that I had discovered a friend to whom I could always turn when searching for guidance on issues of ultimate importance.  Now, more than five decades later, my admiration and respect for Emerson remain the same.  His observations on the nature and potential of mankind are as relevant today as they were in the nineteenth century.  As philosopher and writer Jacob Needleman states in The Spiritual Emerson, a new compendium of seven of Emerson's essays —
Reading Emerson can awaken a part of the psyche that our culture has suppressed.  And when this part of our human nature makes itself known to us, we are, for that moment, no longer hypnotized by the black dream of a dead universe or the hellish dream of a vain and angry God.  Nor, for that moment, are we under the spell of sudden illusions or arrogant fantasies about what human beings are and what they can become: illusions that deny the true metaphysical nobility of man; fantasies that blind us to how far we actually are from that nobility.
In keeping with what has almost become an annual ritual, I have been re-reading some the Emerson essays that influenced me as a young man seeking liberation from the stifling conformity of my southern background.  These essays inspire me now as they always have, and I would like to share some of Emerson's thinking with you on my blog, beginning today with some excerpts from "Self-Reliance."  As I read this wisdom, I continue to ask myself if there is anyone writing today who not only possesses such a penetrating mind, but who also has the power to summon us to our better natures.

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.  Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost . . .

* * * * *

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. 

* * * * *

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 or 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.

* * * * *

Trust thyself:  every heart vibrates to that iron string.  Accept the place the divine providence has found for you . . .

* * * * *

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.

* * * * *

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. 

* * * * * 

I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.

* * * * *

Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love.

* * * * *

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 your own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

* * * * * 


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.

* * * * *

To be great is to be misunderstood.

* * * * *

These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exists with God today.  There is not 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.

* * * * *

Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim.

* * * * *


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.

* * * * *

Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart . . .

* * * * *

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


Emerson's Study

25 comments:

  1. i still think of Emerson as America's greatest philosopher.

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  2. Thanks for these selections.. I'll be teaching a senior high school class studying the Transcendentalists, and these quotes remind of the great flavor of Emerson. Perfect.

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  3. To Loren,

    Thanks for your comment, Loren. I agree with your assessment of Emerson. I hope you will drop by again and contribute to the conversation on this site.

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  4. To Laura,

    Thanks, Laura. Glad that you found this posting to be of interest to you. I have great admiration for those whose lives are dedicated to the teaching of history and literature. Please feel free to stop by and contribute again.

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  5. Oh yes. I have a Complete Prose Works in small and dense type (so small and dense I can hardly read it!) - and a pocketable, more readable collection of the best known Essays. 'Self-Reliance' is the second essay in this book; it has always been one of my favourites.

    Your post at once brings to mind Thoreau's reflections on trusting one's own thoughts and feelings, and believing in the subjective integrity and innate morality of the individual - things I've been touching on recently in my 'Turnstone' blog.

    As Dylan sings, echoing Emerson: 'Trust yourself / Trust yourself to do the things that only you know best / Trust yourself / Trust yourself to do what's right and not be second-guessed...'

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  6. To Robert,

    Thanks for your great comments. I love your pairing Emerson's words with those of Dylan. Emerson and Thoreau. I can hardly speak of one without the other. These were the two voices that liberated me from the cultural prisons of the American south in the early sixties.

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  7. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. I love that.

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  8. Since I am an academic adviser in an English department, I especially appreciate you putting Emerson's torchlight in the context of your freshman year in college. It suddenly occurs to me that I should give every advisee a copy of Emerson upon our first meeting. It's something I seem to be talking with them about lately: all the knowledge they're accumulating means little to nothing if they don't chew on it and make it their own, decide what is true for them.

    I also really like picturing you as a college freshman who recognized himself in Emerson. It doesn't surprise me, especially since you went off on a long trek through Europe alone sometime after that. Curiosity and openness, and the willingness and determination to entrust knowledge to one's own soul for guidance is something you've developed even more deeply, and still, freshly, after all these decades, from what I know of you.

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  9. To Tess,

    Thanks, Tess, and you're right. We create our own peace or go without it.

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  10. To Ruth,

    Thanks, my friend. Anyone who has you as his or her academic advisor is a very lucky person, especially if you are going to start handing out copies of Emerson, which would be a great idea for any university. What a great opportunity you have to be a constructive force in the lives of young people! I grow frustrated when young people are so focused upon the perceived financial rewards of an education that they lose sight of the very purpose of an education. For me, education is a pathway to liberation, fulfillment, and meaning. Emerson, of course, was a trailblazer for me. Maybe there is a young Emerson or a young Ruth Mowry among your students. How wonderful that would be.

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  11. George, I think inscribing your words on the frontispiece of a volume of Emerson would be a great start for young college students: Your "education is a pathway to liberation, fulfillment, and meaning."

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  12. Thank you, Ruth. I am just giving credit where credit is due. Education, which is an ongoing process, has always been — and will continue to be — the foundation of my life. I believe that we are called by life to learn during our brief transit and to plant the seeds of what we learn for future generations.

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  13. Emerson is an old friend of mine, too. (And Thoreau) I enjoyed the quotes you compiled here. Hope you are still enjoying warmth and sea breezes, George.

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  14. To Barb,

    Thanks for your comments, Barb. Glad you liked the quotes, and, yes, I am enjoying the sea breezes, though the truly warm days have been few and far between. I trust you are staying on your skis.

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  15. I don't know as much as I should about these Transcendentalist people. I was reminded of a book I haven't read but should have: Charles Ives' Essays Before a Sonata.

    http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=1453100&pageno=7

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  16. thank you for re-introducing me to Emerson and all his wonderful quotes- the last one resonated because I recently had to rely on my integrity in a difficult decision.

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  17. To Dominic,

    I don't know about the Ives book, but it sounds interesting. I can heartily recommend everything Emerson has written, as well as the work of his fellow New Englander, Thoreau.

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  18. To Donna,

    Thanks, Donna. I find Emerson's essays just as rewarding today, if not more rewarding, than I did when I first read them. On matters like ethics and integrity, one can find no better guide.

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  19. "The virtue in most request is conformity." Eeek!! So terrible and so true, that cuts a cold swath of terror straight through to my bones.

    "To be great is to be misunderstood." That one is unforgettable.

    A wonderful selection of quotes, thank you for taking the time to share them.

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  20. To Fireweed,

    Glad that you liked these quotes, Fireweed. Yes, from what I have been able to learn from your own blog, I can see how the two quotes you mention would resonate deeply with you, as they do with me.

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  21. You got me thinking and I've just posted my next comment on this on my blog, here. It was too long to stick in a comments box!

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  22. Thanks, Dominic. I headed over now to check out your post.

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  23. What a fine harvest, George. Emerson coined a term and a concept that I love: "creative reading". I see that you are a practitioner of that fertile philosophy.

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  24. To Lorenzo,

    Thanks, Lorenzo. I have never come across this term of "creative reading," but it really resonates with me. While I am usually entertained by reading, entertainment is never my goal when picking up a book. I am always looking for pathways to understanding and creativity in my own life.

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  25. Hey George,

    haven't heard from you in a while, which I suppose means you're having an enjoyable time where it's not too cold. Hope all is well!

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