"It's easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it's easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

Book Review This review was written during a college course years ago; it's funny how basic and immature my thoughts were... LOL Aaaah! That’s all that I can say to Emerson. Last time when I read “The American Scholar,” by mistake, I thought the world of Emerson. Now that I read “The Poet” and “Self-Reliance,” I can no longer say that I like all his work and that I understand him. I was so lost by what I read last night, that I tried rereading it again today, but it was to no avail.

Edit: (31.12.18)I absolutely love this essay. Just like last time if not more. I read this because 1. I needed to complete the reading challenge for this year and 2. Self reliance was becoming increasingly hard without the person who recommended this :/First review:This essay was beautiful, thought-provoking and transformative for me. "It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in midst of a crowd keeps wit...

6.0 stars. This book seriously affected me in a very postive way. It's not really even a book but rather a long essay. Essay or book, it had a profound impact on me. In fact, I was utterly floored while reading this and it has become one of my "All Time Favorites." Other then gushing and throwing great heaps of praise on the work, I am not sure how best to describe the contents so as to do it justice. If I had to try and sum up Emerson's Self Reliance I would say that it is first and foremos

For Emerson, the greatest good is to elevate and worship ones’ self, and the greatest sin is to look outside ones’ self. While who we are is a product of what has come before and will contribute to what will go on, Emerson sees a danger of looking to the past or considering the future in our actions. He preaches that we should have a focus entirely on the present. Being true to ourselves in the moment may cause inconsistencies and misunderstandings, but this is all part of his greater good. Emer...

I THUS PROUDLY DENOUNCE LOGIC - What Mr. Emerson is really trying to say.I would like to start this review with a quote. Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote thusly: “Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say ‘I think’, ‘I am’, but quotes some saint or sage”. I think - I say again, I think - Mr. Emerson is a good writer; his way with words is undeniably extraordinary. As a philosopher, however, he demonstrates nothing but utter failure in this essay. “Self-Reliance” is...

Very quotable. I've found myself slumping hard over this one.In this essay, Emerson emphasizes the importance of solitude, the place where the only voice we can hear is ours. This is self-reliance—listening to that voice. "These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world." I have one problem with Emerson in this piece. I don't appreciate his grave insistence on Presence and his dismissal of the values of past experiences, book...

A veritable treasure trove of vague aphorisms and pithy quotations perfectly suited for:1- the covers of glittery pink notebooks for teenage girls2- young artists with cape-and-beret syndrome3- sociopathsNo wonder Poe made fun of Emerson.

Shreyaan swadharmo vigunah paradharmaat swanushthitaat; Swadharme nidhanam shreyah paradharmo bhayaavahah.The Bhagavad-Gita, 3.35 (Chapter 3, Verse 35)[Better is one's own Dharma, though devoid of merit, than the Dharma of another well discharged. Better is even death in one's own Dharma; to attempt the Dharma of another is fraught with danger.]I felt that Self-Reliance is a book length homage to this verse. Emerson, while talking loftily of originality seems to have not the slightest compunctio...

This was fascinating to read for English class and I enjoyed having a more philosophical view to read from

This is a short essay, dense with wise words and food for thought. I struggled a bit with the XIXth century English but after a while I have got used to it and the reading became somewhat easier. “A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back

"It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."I feel it's futile to substitute words for the feelings that I experienced reading his essay. I feel this way and I don't want to force it out. The experience is mine and mine only. For anyone who wants to feel has got to read, experience and meditate on their own.I'm genuinely gl...

Comments and passages.Although this 1841 essay is somewhat imbued with “Divine Providence”, Emerson makes a cogent as well as eloquent argument for being your own person. As per John Ruskin, you must read this 19th century English work “letter by letter”, but it is worth it. A few sample passages:“Ne te quaesiveris extra.” (“Do not seek outside yourself.”) “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. Speak your lat...

An absolutely stellar essay full of thoughts on just about all aspects of society. It’s astonishing how relevant it stays today! This is the type of book that I will read every couple of years to see what new aspect I can glean from it.

Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson is a collection of thoughts published by the author in the year 1841. It is indeed a very rare manuscript as it urges its readers to do the unthinkable – trust your gut feeling, your intuition, your common sense, your heart, your spirit and soul – rather than follow the will of the majority or the popular opinion of the masses.Personally, I consider this, his masterpieceBut herein lies the twist.I will request you not to read the book.Simply because this book...

Emerson has a way with words that I find seldom matched by others. His prose is rich with imagery that it feels as though I am constructing a physical edifice out of his ideas as I read. My own bias is apparent in the fact that part of the reason I like Emerson so much is that my own meditations on life are similar to his. This particular book, for which is he is most well known for, emphasizes that nothing of true value can come from without and only from within. I can see though how his philos...

"If the finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in suc

This seems such a hymn for a right friendly party (not the extremists). It hoovers over the idea of independence and (obviously, self-reliance) with such a strong conviction that I can almost hear the hounds in the background yelping at those trespassing on his large property. Look at some quotes: “My life is for itself and not for a spectacle”He has the tone of one that is deadly serious. I would have worried that mockery could have shattered him, if I had been his contemporary. Instagram\\my B...

*****one of the greatest works I've ever read!

This is really tedious and bloated and booorrrring. I must honestly tell you that the language is so overly-flowery, pretentious, rambling, and disorganized, that I don't actually know what the essay is about. The gist is to be your own man and to stand out from the crowd, but with that is also the bashing of society's norms, a patriotic(?) attempt to get Americans to be better than people in other countries, a diatribe on religion that (I guess) culminates into you having 'one maker' who made y...