Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Identity

Essays, First Series, essay VIII, ‘Heroism,’ Project Gutenberg #2944. ‘Self-trust is the essence of heroism’ occurs as Emerson defines the heroic soul's defiance of falsehood and wrong. It remains Transcendentalist moral and conduct-of-life rhetoric rather than a clinical personality measure or empirical prediction of courageous behavior.

Self-Reliance; Emerson gives the imperative while arguing for originality, self-trust, and resistance to imitation rather than dependence on another person’s model.

Essay “Self-Reliance.”

Essays, First Series, essay II, “Self-Reliance,” Project Gutenberg #2944. “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist” follows Emerson’s claim that society conspires against the manhood of its members through conformity. The represented Gutenberg witness prints a comma after “man,” while the frozen catalog quotation omits that punctuation; the wording is otherwise the same. It remains Transcendentalist moral rhetoric about self-trust and independence rather than a universal instruction to reject social norms or expertise.

Self-Reliance, in Emerson’s discussion of genuine action rather than virtue performed as spectacle.

Self-Reliance; the sentence follows Emerson’s instruction to let action reveal character.

Essay “Self-Reliance”; Emerson criticizes rigid adherence to past opinions when fresh judgment requires revision.

Essay “Self-Reliance.”

Self-Reliance, in the passage beginning with Emerson’s argument for nonconformity.

Society and Solitude, essay “Success”; Project Gutenberg #69258. Emerson immediately explains self-trust as believing that one is here “for cause” or for a task fitted to one's constitution, while warning that it does not mean rushing into a showy feat for spectators.

The American Scholar, 1837 address, Project Gutenberg #16643. Emerson says the scholar’s duties may be comprised in self-trust; the claim belongs to transcendentalist intellectual and civic rhetoric, not a guarantee that private conviction is always correct.

The American Scholar; Emerson contrasts creative reading with allowing past books to pull a person away from an independent intellectual orbit.

The Conduct of Life, essay II, “Power,” Project Gutenberg #39827. “Life is a search after power” appears at the opening of Emerson’s prose discussion after the verse epigraph and introduces his account of capacity, agency and human influence. It remains nineteenth-century Transcendentalist conduct-of-life philosophy rather than an empirical law of motivation or success.