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“He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation.”
A life copied from convention leaves important human faculties unused; choosing deliberately requires observation, judgment and firmness.
Source note: On Liberty, Chapter III; Mill contrasts imitation with actively choosing one’s own plan of life.
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“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
The line makes self-trust a prerequisite for independent thought and action.
Source note: Essay “Self-Reliance.”
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“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
Wilde separates deliberate individual living from merely passing through existence, making self-realization and chosen purpose part of what it means to live fully.
Source note: The Soul of Man under Socialism; Wilde develops individualism as the freedom to form a life from within rather than conform to social expectation.
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“Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.”
The passage favors an examined personal direction over drifting into a life selected by convention.
Source note: Walden; Thoreau contrasts one’s own deliberate track with paths chosen by others.
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“If a man is to turn everything whatsoever into his own calm, dignity, and happiness, he must make this use even of his own failures.”
Failure becomes useful when it is examined and incorporated into future conduct instead of being allowed to settle a person’s sense of dignity or possibility.
Source note: The Human Machine, discussion of using experience for self-command. Bennett’s claim is philosophical self-training advice; it does not imply that every failure is beneficial or emotionally easy.
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“Self-help is the best help.”
Asking for help does not replace the responsibility to make the effort that is already within one’s own power.
Source note: Moral printed after “Hercules and the Wagoner” in the Townsend translation; Hercules first tells the driver to help himself.