Book Review of 'Self Reliance' by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Book Review of
"Self Reliance"
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

From

"The World's Great Thinkers"
Volume Two "Man and Man:
The social Philosophers"
Edited by Saxe Commins and Robert N. Linscott
Random House, New York, 1947

Book Review by Bill Schaeffer

copyright (c) 2013, 2018
William Schaeffer

****

p.383

"I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instill is of more value than any thought they may contain. 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, and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment."

p.384

"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..."

p.386

"Whoso would be man, must be a nonconformist..."

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

p. 389

"For your nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure..."

p.390

"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."

"Is it so bad to be misunderstood? 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."

p. 391

"The voyage of the best ship is a zig zag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself to the average tendency."

"Greatness appeals to the Future."

p. 403

"Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places..."

p. 408

"So use all that is called Fortune. Most men gamble with her, and gain all, and lose all, as her wheel rolls. But do thou leave as unlawful these winning, and deal with Cause and Effect, the chancellors of God. In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance, and shall sit hereafter out of fear from her rotations. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles."

*****

[acrookedmanwhowalkedacrook]

Although I disagree with your view on Emerson's other work, I think this is a great review. Emerson is so invigorating! and this is his best work.

[atwaterpub]

Thank you. You are probably correct. I need to be more patient to fully appreciate his writing. I promise that I will read some of Emerson's other work again.