Self-Reliance
The second essay and the famous one: trust your own thought, refuse to conform, and do not fear contradicting yourself. Pages 35 to 73 of the first edition.
Essays: First Series
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays: First Series
Twelve essays from 1841, and the second of them is "Self-Reliance": trust yourself, and stop apologising for it.
- 1841
- 303
- Exuberant
- voice-driven
- lyrical
- challenging
About Ralph Waldo Emerson
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeEssays: First Series is the book that holds "Self-Reliance", Ralph Waldo Emerson's best-known essay. James Munroe and Company published it in Boston in 1841 under the plain title Essays. The words "First Series" were added after a second book of essays followed in 1844. The twelve essays are History, Self-Reliance, Compensation, Spiritual Laws, Love, Friendship, Prudence, Heroism, The Over-Soul, Circles, Intellect and Art.[1][2] Many of them grew out of lectures Emerson gave in Boston in the late 1830s. "Self-Reliance" is the source of "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist" and "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds".[1]
The story, in more detail
Emerson built the essays out of his lecture notes. In the autumn of 1836 he advertised twelve lectures at the Masonic Temple in Boston, "On the Philosophy of Modern History". The course began on 8 December. His literary executor, James Elliot Cabot, says that much of it was printed three or four years later in the first series of Essays, many sentences with little change.[3] A later Boston course, begun in December 1838, supplied more. Cabot says the lecture on love went into the book almost entire.[4]
The Boston first edition runs to 303 pages. The title page reads only Essays, by R. W. Emerson, and one early owner wrote "First Series" on it by hand. "Self-Reliance" fills pages 35 to 73.[1]
The same year, James Fraser brought out a London edition with a preface by Thomas Carlyle, the Scottish writer Emerson had visited in 1833. Carlyle warned the great reading public off. The book, he said, was for "the small thinking public". Carlyle added that the small thinking public was growing in England.[5]
Emerson revised the essays for later printings, so later texts differ from the 1841 one in small ways. The first edition reads "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist", with no comma. The same page reads "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind". Project Gutenberg's text has a comma in the first sentence and "your own mind" in the second.[1][6]
What's inside
"History" opens the book with its central idea: there is one mind common to all people, so anyone can read all of history as their own story. "Self-Reliance" follows. Emerson tells the reader to trust their own thought and to stop copying other people, other countries and the past. "Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members," he writes. He attacks conformity, consistency, travel for its own sake and borrowed styles of building.[1]
"Compensation" argues that every gain is paid for and every loss brings something back. "Spiritual Laws" says a person does best by following their own bent without strain. "Each man has his own vocation," he writes there. "Love" and "Friendship" ask what the people closest to us are for. "Prudence" deals with ordinary good sense. "Heroism" praises the courage to hold out against what everyone else thinks.[1]
"The Over-Soul" describes a single spirit that every person shares, and which speaks through them when they stop blocking it. "Circles" says every truth can be surpassed by a larger one drawn around it. "Intellect" is about how thinking actually happens. "Art", the last essay, argues that great pictures are simple and that American artists need not copy Europe.[1]
Themes and analysis
"Self-Reliance": the argument in its own words
"Self-Reliance" starts with a small event. Emerson had been reading some verses by an eminent painter and liked that they were original. From that he draws his rule: "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men, — that is genius." Then he describes something most readers will know. In every work of genius, he says, we recognise our own rejected thoughts, which come back to us "with a certain alienated majesty".
The essay's most quoted lines come in the next few pages. "Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string" is on page 39. "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist" is on page 41. On page 47 comes the line about consistency. Its target is the habit of refusing to say what you think today because it contradicts what you said yesterday.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.
His answer to the fear of being misunderstood is a list. Pythagoras was misunderstood, he says, and so were Socrates, Jesus, Luther, Copernicus, Galileo and Newton. Then he ends the paragraph with the line that follows the list: "To be great is to be misunderstood."
Near the end, the essay turns to travel. "Travelling is a fool's paradise," Emerson writes. At home he dreams that Naples and Rome will cure his sadness. He packs his trunk, crosses the sea, and wakes up in Naples to find "the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from." Emerson had made that journey himself in 1833, through Sicily and Naples to Rome. A page later he gives his rule: "Insist on yourself; never imitate."
Paris in the essay on Art
Paris comes into the book near the end, in "Art". Emerson recalls how, as a young man, he imagined the great Italian paintings would be strange and foreign. When he finally saw them, they showed him the plain, familiar things he had left at home. He says he met that same fact in a church in Naples, in Rome, in the Vatican, "and again at Milan, and at Paris, and made all travelling ridiculous as a treadmill."
The pictures he saw at Paris were in the Musée du Louvre. His journal for June and July 1833 records a visit there. He found more paintings by Leonardo da Vinci than in any other gallery, and he liked them. In the same weeks he sat in on free science lectures at the Sorbonne and walked through the natural history collections at the Jardin des Plantes.
Paris also gave the essays their first French readers in book form. In 1851 the Paris publisher Charpentier issued Essais de philosophie américaine, Emerson's essays translated by Émile Montégut. Montégut added a long introduction, and the book runs to 55 pages of introduction and 313 of text.
Quotes from Essays: First Series
Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
Why we recommend it
The home of "Self-Reliance"
Emerson's most searched and most quoted essay is the second in the book. The essays around it make the same case from other sides.
Lines people quote without knowing the source
The hobgoblin of little minds, the nonconformist, and "to be great is to be misunderstood" all come from one essay, within ten pages of each other.
Carlyle's "small thinking public"
Thomas Carlyle introduced the London edition in 1841 and warned ordinary readers off. The book found its public anyway.
Free and out of copyright
The full text is on Project Gutenberg as ebook 2944, and scans of both 1841 first editions are on the Internet Archive.
What this book explores
Bring it to book club
- Emerson says society is in conspiracy against the independence of its members. Is that truer or less true now?
- "A foolish consistency" is usually quoted without the word foolish. What changes when you put it back?
- "Self-Reliance" warns against travel as an escape. Do you agree, and has a trip ever proved him right?
- Which of the twelve essays would you give to someone who has only read "Self-Reliance"?
- Carlyle said the book was for "the small thinking public". Who is it for today?
Inside the book
History
The opening essay. Because one mind is common to everyone, every reader can find all of history in their own experience.
Compensation
Every gain has its price and every loss its return. The essay opens: "Ever since I was a boy, I have wished to write a discourse on Compensation".
Friendship
On what friends are for. The source of "the only way to have a friend, is to be one", on page 176 of the first edition.
The Over-Soul
A single spirit shared by every person, which speaks through anyone who stops blocking it.
Circles
Every truth can be surpassed by a wider one. Ends with "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."
Art
The last essay. Great pictures are simple, and Emerson found the same plain fact in the galleries of Naples, Rome, Milan and Paris.
Timeline
1833
Emerson travels through Italy to Paris and England. The journey shows up in "Self-Reliance" and "Art".
1836
He begins a course of twelve lectures in Boston on the philosophy of modern history. Much of it later goes into the essays.
1838
A new Boston lecture course begins in December. The lecture on love later goes into the book almost unchanged.
1841
James Munroe and Company publishes Essays in Boston. James Fraser publishes a London edition with a preface by Thomas Carlyle.
1844
Essays: Second Series appears, and the 1841 book becomes the first series.
1851
Charpentier publishes Essais de philosophie américaine in Paris, translated by Émile Montégut.
1979
Harvard University Press publishes Essays, First Series as volume 2 of The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- James Munroe and Company, Boston
- 1841
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- James Fraser, London
- 1841
Paperback
- Paperback
- Charpentier, Paris
- 1851
- Émile Montégut
- Hardcover
- Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
- 1979
- 9780674139800
- Hardcover
- Library of America
- 1983
- 9780940450158
- Paperback
- Penguin Classics
- 2003
- 9780142437629
- Paperback
- Dover Publications
- 1993
- 9780486277905
Reader reviews
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Read our takeThe American Scholar
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The 1837 Harvard speech that first told American readers to trust themselves. "Self-Reliance" develops the same call.
Read our takeRepresentative Men
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His 1850 lectures on six great men. The Montaigne lecture explains where his own essay form came from.
Read our takePoems
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Essays: First Series: frequently asked questions
Which book is "Self-Reliance" in?
Essays: First Series, published in Boston in 1841. "Self-Reliance" is the second of its twelve essays, after "History". The first edition was titled simply Essays.
When was "Self-Reliance" published?
In 1841, in Emerson's first book of essays. Much of his thinking in it had already appeared in lectures he gave in Boston from 1836 onward.
What is "Self-Reliance" about?
Trusting your own judgment. Emerson argues that people should think for themselves instead of copying society, tradition or other countries. He also says they should not fear contradicting themselves or being misunderstood.
What does "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" mean?
Emerson is attacking the habit of sticking to what you said before just to look consistent. The next sentences tell the reader to say what they think today and what they think tomorrow, even if the two contradict. The key word is foolish.
Is it "your own mind" or "our own mind"?
Both, depending on the edition. The 1841 first edition reads "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind." Emerson's revised text, which Project Gutenberg follows, reads "your own mind".
What other essays are in the book?
History, Self-Reliance, Compensation, Spiritual Laws, Love, Friendship, Prudence, Heroism, The Over-Soul, Circles, Intellect and Art.
Does the book mention Paris?
Yes, in the essay "Art". Emerson says the plain truth he found in the great pictures of Naples and Rome met him again at Milan and at Paris. He had seen the Louvre's paintings in 1833. The essays were first published in French in Paris in 1851.
Where can I read it for free?
Project Gutenberg has the full text as ebook 2944. The Internet Archive has scans of the 1841 Boston first edition and the 1841 London edition with Thomas Carlyle's preface.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Essays: First Series, its publication, and its place in literary history.
2↑Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Men of Letters)
BiographyHoughton, Mifflin and Company, Boston and New York; digitized by the Internet Archive, 1884Used forOliver Wendell Holmes on the 1841 volume and its twelve essays.
3↑A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in two volumes
BiographyPrinted at the Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1887Used forJames Elliot Cabot on the 1836 lecture course that fed the essays.
4↑A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, volume II
BiographyPrinted at the Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1887Used forCabot on the 1838–39 lecture course and the lecture on love.
5↑Essays, by R. W. Emerson, of Concord, Massachusetts, with Preface by Thomas Carlyle (London: James Fraser, 1841)
EssaysJames Fraser, London; digitized by the Internet Archive, 1841Used forThe London edition of 1841, with Thomas Carlyle's preface.
6↑Essays — First Series (Project Gutenberg etext), including Self-Reliance
EssaysProject Gutenberg, eBook #2944, 1841Used forProject Gutenberg's text, which follows Emerson's later revisions. Used to compare readings.
7Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1820–1872, Volume III (1833–1835), edited by Edward Waldo Emerson and Waldo Emerson Forbes
MemoirHoughton Mifflin / The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1909Used forEmerson's journal of the 1833 journey, including the Louvre, the Sorbonne and the Jardin des Plantes.
8Essais de philosophie américaine, par Ralph Emerson, trans. and introduced by Émile Montégut, Paris: Charpentier, 1851 — catalogue record
Official recordBibliothèque nationale de FranceUsed forThe Bibliothèque nationale de France record of the 1851 Paris translation.
9Essays, First Series — Open Library edition records (work OL62238W)
WebsiteOpen Library, Internet ArchiveUsed forCatalogue records for the Harvard Collected Works volume and other editions.
10Essays & Lectures (Library of America, 1983) — Open Library record
WebsiteOpen Library, Internet ArchiveUsed forThe Library of America volume: ISBN, contents and page count.
11Nature and Selected Essays, ed. Larzer Ziff (Penguin, 2003) — Open Library record
WebsiteOpen Library, Internet ArchiveUsed forThe Penguin Classics selection: ISBN, contents and page count.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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