It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their association; in their property; in their speculative views.
Interpretation
Greater self-reliance leads to transformative changes in all aspects of life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote emphasizes the importance of self-reliance as a foundational principle that can bring about significant change in various spheres of human activity. By advocating for individuals to depend on themselves, Emerson suggests that this trait can revolutionize personal relationships, educational systems, religious beliefs, and societal structures, promoting a more independent and fulfilling way of living.
In practice
A motivational speaker might use this quote during a seminar about personal growth.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
To a large extent, whether you suffer depends on how you respond to a given situation.
And I am still alive-what though, my damnation is eternal. A man who deliberately mutilates himself is truly damned, is he not? I believe that I am in hell, therefore I am.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
It is a violation which has obsessed the tyrants of the twentieth century. They do not want simply to kill their opponents, but to liquidate them, to deny that they have ever existed.
For neither good nor evil can last for ever; and so it follows that as evil has lasted a long time, good must now be close at hand.
History isn't what happened, history is just what historians tell us.
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