Self-reliance quotes

Solitude of Self; this clause occurs inside Stanton’s argument for education, civic voice, economic opportunity, and emancipation from enforced dependence.

Enchiridion, section XIII, George Long translation; the advice warns against pursuing both inner discipline and external reputation.

The Power of Truth, “The Courage to Face Ingratitude.” Project Gutenberg #56020; first published August 1902. Jordan’s standard is moral perseverance, not indifference to all criticism.

Dhammapada 157, Chapter XII “Self,” in Max Müller’s translation; the verse explicitly joins self-regard with watchfulness and ethical discipline.

Thrift, Preface; original Preface dated London, November 1875, verified in Project Gutenberg #14418’s represented John Murray Fiftieth Thousand witness (London, 1892). Smiles introduces the book as a sequel to Self-Help and Character and writes that thrift is the basis of Self-Help and the foundation of much that is excellent in Character. This remains Victorian conduct-of-life and moral-economic argument rather than current financial guidance.

Up from Slavery, Chapter XIV, “The Atlanta Exposition Address,” Project Gutenberg #2376. The sentence occurs inside Washington’s reproduced 1895 Atlanta Exposition address, where he argues for the dignity of common labour and beginning economic development from practical foundations.

Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2, in the 1919 Yale Shakespeare edition edited by Lawrence Mason. Cassius tells Brutus that men can be masters of their fates and immediately continues, ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.’ This is Cassius’s political persuasion inside the drama, not neutral historical evidence or Shakespeare speaking directly.

“Proverbs of Hell.”

Conclusion of Walden; Thoreau argues for following one’s own measure and direction.

The Way to Wealth, where Father Abraham repeats maxims associated with Poor Richard.

Self-Control, Its Kingship and Majesty, later discussion of individual possibility. The sentence is motivational rhetoric about human potential rather than a measurable universal prediction.

Walt Whitman, 'Song of the Open Road,' section 5 in the represented 1882 Leaves of Grass text. 'I am larger, better than I thought, I did not know I held so much goodness' follows the speaker's declaration of being loosed from imagined limits. It remains poetic first-person self-discovery rather than empirical psychology.

The Majesty of Calmness, “The Dignity of Self-Reliance.” The represented 1900 work is public domain; the investment metaphor belongs to Jordan’s conduct-of-life rhetoric, not financial advice.

“To Althea, from Prison,” in Lucasta, Project Gutenberg #703. The poem was written in the context of Lovelace’s imprisonment and expresses Cavalier political and personal loyalty; its claim about freedom is poetic rather than a denial of the real harms of incarceration.

The Victorious Attitude, chapter on faith; Marden explicitly distinguishes other people’s good opinion from the faith in oneself he calls imperative.

Eighty Years and More (1898), Chapter XIV, “Views on Marriage and Divorce,” Project Gutenberg #11982. This sentence immediately follows Stanton’s individual-sovereignty claim inside her quoted April 1894 Arena article: she contrasts older state/family primacy with the Christian claim of individual conscience and judgment. The passage is historical reform argument, not modern constitutional or family-law doctrine.

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

Song of Myself, 1882 text; Whitman immediately compares this unapologetic stance with elementary laws that never apologize.

On Liberty, Chapter I; Mill states the liberty principle before developing its implications for individuality and social authority.

Song of Myself, section 1 in the 1882 Leaves of Grass text, printed page 29 (Wikisource scan page 35). The retained wording “I celebrate myself, and sing myself” is not the 1855 first-edition opening, which reads only “I celebrate myself”; the synchronized source year is therefore corrected from 1855 to 1882.

The Power of Truth, “The Way of the Reformer.” The qualifying language about rights and duties is retained because it prevents the individualist passage from being reduced to purely self-centered advice.

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, in the mountain-travel passage represented by Project Gutenberg #4232. The line follows Thoreau's argument that travellers often exaggerate difficulties and that a person who thinks himself lost can recover steadiness by recognizing where he actually stands.

The Professor, early first-person narration by the fictional William Crimsworth. The novel was published posthumously in 1857; the line is character narration, not Brontë autobiography.

Darkwater, “Credo.” The passage uses Du Bois’s period language of race and lineage within a broader declaration of human brotherhood, service, justice and liberty.

Solitude of Self, address delivered January 18, 1892; exact full-text witness reviewed on Wikisource. Stanton opens her central argument by shifting from familiar suffrage claims to 'the individuality of each human soul,' grounding political and educational equality in individual conscience, citizenship and responsibility rather than generic self-help.

The Innocents Abroad (1869), Chapter XLVIII. Twain criticizes travel writers who frame rhapsodic pictures and later pilgrims who see through those authors’ eyes and speak with their language instead of observing independently. Verified against the scan-backed 1869 first edition.

Leaves of Grass, “Song of Myself.”

Woman in the Nineteenth Century, in Fuller’s account of “Miranda”; this is the narrator’s description of the illustrative figure rather than a standalone autobiographical maxim.

Of Peace of Mind, section II, Aubrey Stewart translation in Minor Dialogues Together with the Dialogue on Clemency (1889), cross-checked against Project Gutenberg #64576 and the complete Wikisource transcription. Seneca tells Serenus to have confidence in himself and believe he is proceeding on the right path while defining the steady condition he calls peace of mind.

“The Old Stoic,” in Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell; Project Gutenberg #1019. The poem uses a deliberately severe persona and should not be treated as a complete ethical system.

Sartor Resartus, Book II, Chapter IX, “The Everlasting Yea,” printed page 156 / Wikisource scan leaf 188 in The Works of Thomas Carlyle, Centenary Edition, Vol. I (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896). “The Ideal is in thyself” occurs in the same spiritual-enfranchisement passage, where Teufelsdröckh argues that the present “Actual” supplies the material to shape an inward Ideal. This collection retains that fictional, metaphysical and explicitly religious frame rather than converting it into modern clinical or self-esteem doctrine.

The Principles of Success in Literature, chapter on Style, Project Gutenberg #10420; Lewes criticizes attempts to copy the verbal mannerisms of famous writers.

Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil, “Credo,” originally published in 1920. Project Gutenberg #15210. The sentence continues with freedom of association, movement, thought, dream and work “uncursed by color.”

Political Ideals, Chapter I, Project Gutenberg #4776. Russell distinguishes possessive impulses from creative or constructive impulses and then says that the best life gives the largest role to the latter. This remains a 1917 political-philosophy ideal about individual life and institutions, not a current empirical measure of wellbeing or creativity.

On the Shortness of Life, Chapter XIX; Seneca closes by asking the engrossed to measure how much of their lifetime was actually their own.

A Voice from the South, “Womanhood a Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress of a Race,” Project Gutenberg #61741 / Wikisource 1892 text. The sentence belongs to Cooper's Black feminist argument about representation, education and racial uplift; it is not a generic claim that one individual literally represents every Black person.

My Larger Education, Chapter I, “Learning from Men and Things”; Project Gutenberg #73923. Washington reflects on how he came to emphasize internal discipline and concentrated effort while explicitly acknowledging externally imposed disadvantage.

How to Succeed, chapter “Hold Up Your Head,” in the Project Gutenberg text; the book’s period language and success philosophy are preserved as historical self-development writing.

The Conservation of Races, Academy Creed, point 6; Project Gutenberg #5685. This is Du Bois’s own programmatic statement. The essay’s broader nineteenth-century racial theory remains historical context and is not presented as current biological science.

Life Without and Life Within, Part I ‘Reviews,’ essay ‘Menzel's View of Gœthe,’ Project Gutenberg #39037. ‘For the soul seeks not adorers, but peers’ appears in Fuller's discussion of the youth of genius, mockers and worshippers, immediately contrasting blind worship with ‘intelligent sympathy.’ It remains nineteenth-century literary criticism and intellectual reflection rather than a universal social or relationship rule.

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.

On Liberty, Chapter III; Mill links individuality, cultivated impulses and energetic character.

The Human Machine, later discussion of self-training. “Machine” is Bennett’s extended metaphor for the person’s mental and emotional habits; the line is not a biomedical model.

The Prophet, “On Children.”

Human, All-Too-Human, Part I, aphorism 579, “Unsuitable For a Party-man”; Helen Zimmern translation.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Chapter V, Project Gutenberg #23. Douglass is explaining his belief that Providence shaped his removal to Baltimore and immediately connects that belief with a continuing conviction that slavery would not hold him forever.

The Art of Literature, section “On Thinking for Oneself,” T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10714. The library analogy immediately precedes the sentence.

The novel contrasts outside pressure with the value of attending to one’s own judgment.

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 Majesty of Calmness, “The Dignity of Self-Reliance.” Jordan’s ideal of independence is period self-development writing; it does not require isolation or refusal of legitimate help.