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Self Reliance

This document provides context and summaries key passages from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance". It discusses Emerson's background as a Unitarian minister who rejected traditional worship, his embrace of transcendentalist philosophy, and major ideas in "Self-Reliance" like spirituality, nonconformity, self-confidence, self-trust, and individualism. Key quotes from the essay promote thinking for oneself over imitation, integrity over social conformity, and living from within rather than by traditions.

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aizaz ahmed
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317 views11 pages

Self Reliance

This document provides context and summaries key passages from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance". It discusses Emerson's background as a Unitarian minister who rejected traditional worship, his embrace of transcendentalist philosophy, and major ideas in "Self-Reliance" like spirituality, nonconformity, self-confidence, self-trust, and individualism. Key quotes from the essay promote thinking for oneself over imitation, integrity over social conformity, and living from within rather than by traditions.

Uploaded by

aizaz ahmed
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Self-Reliance 

by
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Aizaz Ahmed
2k17-ENG-51
Contents
• Intro to the text
• Author & Historical Context
• Transcendentalism
• Lines from the text
• Major Ideas
Intro to the text
• Philosophical essay in Essays: First Series
• Response to criticism on Unitarianism and
John Locke’s empiricism
• Based on Transcendentalism
– Essential unity of all creation
– The innate goodness of humanity
– The supremacy of insight over logic
– Experience for the revelation of the deepest truths
R. W. Emerson & historical context
• Writer and thinker born in Boston,
Massachusetts in Unitarian family
• Became servant of the Unitarian Church and
had conflict regarding worship (bread and wine
eating)
• After three years, he resigned his post, saying:
"This mode of celebrating Christ is no longer
suitable to me. That is reason enough why I
should abandon it."
R. W. Emerson & historical context
• Europe’s visits
• Direct and immediate experience of God
• Spiritual mind and heart unbound by church
or party: Transcendental philosophy
• Inherent wisdom: Immanuel Kant
• Worship not limited to religious conventions
• Founding member of ‘Transcendental Club’
Lines from the text
• “Pythagoras was misunderstood, and
Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and
Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton,8 and
every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh.
To be great is to be misunderstood.”
• “In every work of genius we recognize our
own rejected thoughts,”
Lines from the text
• "Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but
your best self. There is something which you
can do better than another.“
• "Whoso would be a man, must be a
nonconformist.“
• "The only person you are destined to become
is the person you decide to be."
Lines from the text
• “I am ashamed to think how easily we
capitulate to badges and names, to large
societies and dead institutions“
• "My life is for itself and not for a spectacle.“
• "To be great is to be misunderstood."
• "To be yourself in a world that is constantly
trying to make you something else is the
greatest accomplishment."
Lines from the text
• "What have I to do with the sacredness of
traditions, if I live wholly from within?“
• "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your
own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall
have the suffrage of the world.“
• "God will not have his work made manifest by
cowards.“
• "He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives
with nature in the present, above time."
Lines from the text
• “he dares not say ‘I think,’ ‘I am,’ but quotes
some saint or sage."
• "The great man is he who, in the midst of the
crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness the
independence of solitude.“
• “learn to detect and watch that gleam of light
which flashes across [the] mind from within,
more than the luster of the firmament of bards
and sages.”
Major Ideas
• Spirituality
• Nonconformity
• Self-confidence
• Self-trust
• Individualism

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