Source identified
“Insist on yourself; never imitate.”
Originality begins with developing one’s own capacities rather than copying another person’s surface style.
Source note: Self-Reliance; Emerson gives the imperative while arguing for originality, self-trust, and resistance to imitation rather than dependence on another person’s model.
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“I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul.”
Body and soul are claimed together rather than ranked as opposites, reinforcing the poem’s refusal to treat embodied life as lesser or unworthy of celebration.
Source note: Song of Myself, section 21 in the 1882 Leaves of Grass text; the line opens a passage joining bodily and spiritual experience.
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“I should know that you were beautiful inside all the same.”
Voice: Fictional character · Diamond
Diamond distinguishes inner goodness and loved identity from outward appearance, refusing to make visible attractiveness the sole test of who North Wind truly is.
Source note: At the Back of the North Wind; Project Gutenberg #225. Spoken by the fictional child Diamond to North Wind, so the page preserves speaker and fantasy context rather than presenting it as direct memoir.
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“O BEAUTY, find thyself in love, not in the flattery of thy mirror.”
Beauty is located in relationship and love rather than self-admiring reflection, pushing worth away from flattering appearance alone and toward a less self-enclosed measure.
Source note: Stray Birds, aphorism 28; Project Gutenberg #6524. The personified address to Beauty is poetic language and should not be flattened into a literal rule about appearance or relationships.
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“Remember that thou art a man and do not degrade thyself: this is self-respect.”
Janet treats human dignity as a floor below which humility should not push a person: recognizing weakness does not require degrading oneself or surrendering self-respect.
Source note: Elements of Morals, section 165, Caroline Rollin Corson translation, Project Gutenberg #37016. Janet immediately balances this with “Remember that thou art but a man” as the check against vain pride, making self-respect and humility complementary rather than opposites.
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“Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from.”
Whitman radicalizes self-acceptance by describing the whole person as sacred, dissolving the boundary between an allegedly worthy interior and an unworthy physical exterior.
Source note: Song of Myself, 1882 text; the line belongs to Whitman’s intentionally expansive, bodily-spiritual poetic voice and should be read as poetry rather than literal theological doctrine.