Introduction

'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.' Self-Reliance, Emerson's most famous essay, calls on each person to trust the voice within rather than follow tradition, authority and the opinion of society: 'Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members'; 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds'; 'To be great is to be misunderstood.' This volume also includes Nature, where he writes that standing on the bare ground 'I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all'; The American Scholar, calling on Americans to free themselves from dependence on Europe and think for themselves; and Compensation, The Over-Soul, Experience and other famous essays. His sentences read like aphorisms; nearly every one can be quoted on its own.