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The greatest thing in the world is for a man to know that he is his own.
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“The greatest thing in the world is for a man to know that he is his own.”

Michel de Montaigne

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Source
Essays of Montaigne — Book I
Date
1580
English wording
Charles Cotton — Translator · from French
Meaning

Meaning of “The greatest thing in the world is for…”

Self-possession means keeping enough inward independence that obligations and attachments do not erase the person who carries them.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Essays of Montaigne, Book I, Chapter XXXVIII, ‘Of Solitude,’ Charles Cotton translation edited by William Carew Hazlitt (1877); Project Gutenberg Volume 06 #3586 / Complete Essays #3600. Montaigne’s self-possession sentence occurs in his discussion of inward independence and making a retreat that does not leave the self owned by external obligations.

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Confidence Quotes About Ability & Self-TrustFreedomIdentityIndependenceLoveSelf LoveSelf RelianceSelf TrustSelf-WorthShortWisdom Quotes About Judgment & Living WellSolitude
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The only possible society is oneself.
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“The only possible society is oneself.”

Oscar Wilde · An Ideal Husband · 1895
Voice: Fictional character · Lord Goring
Meaning & context

The comic exaggeration makes self-company part of Wilde’s joke about society while still centering comfort with oneself.

Source details

An Ideal Husband, Act III; Lord Goring tells Phipps “The only possible society is oneself” immediately before the lifelong-romance epigram. Verified against the public-domain Wikisource Act III transcription and Project Gutenberg #885; the line remains dandyish comic character speech rather than uncomplicated authorial doctrine.

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Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
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“Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Self-Reliance · 1841
Meaning & context

Emerson argues that mature character requires enough independence to resist conformity when conviction points elsewhere.

Source details

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.

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I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves.
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“I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves.”

Mary Wollstonecraft · A Vindication of the Rights of Woman · 1792
Meaning & context

The sentence defines empowerment as self-command rather than domination, centering education, judgment, and personal agency as the basis of freedom.

Source details

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; Wollstonecraft distinguishes equality and self-government from power over others.

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That her hand may be given with dignity, she must be able to stand alone.
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“That her hand may be given with dignity, she must be able to stand alone.”

Margaret Fuller · Woman in the Nineteenth Century · 1845
Meaning & context

A relationship entered from the ability to stand independently can preserve dignity more fully than one made necessary by the inability to exist outside it.

Source details

Woman in the Nineteenth Century; Fuller connects the dignity of freely giving oneself in relationship with the prior ability to stand independently.

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