Self-Reliance
To believe our own thought, to believe that what's true for you in your private heart is true for all men.
In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts.
Envy is ignorance.
Imitation is suicide.
The sculpture in the memory is not without pre-established harmony.
The eye was placed where one ray should fall.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
Infancy conforms to nobody: all conform to it.
Society is a joint-stock company in which members agree.
Self-reliance is aversion of conformity.
Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist.
Thy love afar is spite at home.
Truth is handsomer than the affection of love.
The virtues are penances.
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think.
The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
For non-conformity the world whips you with its displeasure.
Go love thy infant; love thy woodchopper; be good natured and modest.
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
The eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts.
Leave thy theory, as Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot, and flee.