Self-Reliance

'Self-Reliance' is an 1841 essay written by American transcendentalist philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes: the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his own instincts and ideas. It is the source of one of Emerson's most famous quotations: 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.


Emerson focuses on seemingly insignificant details explaining how life is 'learning and forgetting and learning again'.