Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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At some point everyone realizes that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that like it or not, we are who we are; that despite the infinite abundance in the universe, nothing good can come to us except by working that little plot of land that we are given to farm.

Each of us is a brand-new power in nature.
No one else knows what we can do.
We ourselves don't even know until we've tried.

It's not for nothing that a face, a personality, a fact will strike a note with you but make no impression at all on me. Your mind is sculpted that way for a purpose. Your eye was placed in the path of a particular ray of light so that it could testify about that ray.

But what do we do? We don't halfway express ourselves before we become ashamed of that divine idea each of us represents. There's no reason to distrust that idea. It grew out of goodness and harmony, given to us in good faith. But God won't have his work done by cowards.

We turn out happy and refreshed when we put our heart into our work and do our best. Anything else gives us no peace; it's a shortcut that short-circuits. And when we try the shortcut we lose our inspiration, our muse, our creativity, our hope.

Trust Yourself

Trust yourself. Every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the universe has found for you—your culture, your society, your circumstances.

Great people have always done that.
Like children, they take for granted
the adventure of the world they were born into.

They reveal their belief that what's completely trustworthy lives in their heart, works through their hands, and radiates through their entire being.

We're adults now, and must accept in our highest mind the same ultimate destiny. We're not children and cripples in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing from a revolution, but guides, liberators, and champions, loyal to the forces of Good and making advances on Chaos and the Dark.

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