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Ralph Waldo Emerson- Self Reliance

August 5, 2004 by Jack Steiner 3 Comments

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This has always been one of my favorite essays. A couple of nuggets:



There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

“No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.”

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  1. Grace says

    August 5, 2004 at 6:53 pm

    yes! i call that grace…finding the good in all experiences on any path…

    Reply
  2. Jack's Shack says

    August 5, 2004 at 2:44 pm

    I have always found it to be meaningful.

    Reply
  3. Anonymous says

    August 5, 2004 at 2:44 am

    I enjoyed this.

    Reply

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