Self-Reliance is an essay written by American Transcendentalist philosopher and essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes, the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his or her own instincts and ideas. It is the source of one of Emerson's most famous quotations, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" (often misquoted by omission of the word "foolish").
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The first hint of the philosophy that would become Self-Reliance was presented by Emerson as part of a sermon in September 1830 a month after his first marriage.[1] His wife was sick with tuberculosis[2] and, as Emerson's biographer Robert D. Richardson wrote, "Immortality had never been stronger or more desperately needed!"[1]
From 1836 into 1837, Emerson presented a series of lectures on the philosophy of history at Boston's Masonic Temple. These lectures were never published separately but many of his thoughts in these were later used in "Self-Reliance" and several other essays.[3] Later lectures by Emerson led to public censure of his radical views, the staunch defense of individualism in "Self-Reliance" being a possible reaction to that censure.[4]
Self-Reliance was first published in his 1841 collection, Essays: First Series.
Emerson presupposes that the mind is initially subject to an unhappy nonconformism.[5] However, "Self-Reliance" is not anti-society or anti-community. Instead, Emerson advocates self-reliance as a starting point, not as a goal.[6]
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