40 Fun Facts About Self-Reliance (Emerson)

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, a foolish consistency adored by statesmen and divines is the hobgoblin of what?

Little minds cling to yesterday's opinions, Emerson argues, while a great soul speaks its conviction today even if that contradicts everything it said before.

According to Emerson's Self-Reliance, whoever would be a man must be what?

A nonconformist, for Emerson, must not be hindered by the name of goodness but must explore for himself whether it really is goodness.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, Socrates, Jesus, Galileo and Newton show that to be great is to be what?

Misunderstood, Emerson notes, was the fate of Pythagoras, Luther and Copernicus too, so the fear of it is no reason to hide a change of heart.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, every man's education brings the conviction that envy is ignorance and imitation is what?

Suicide is Emerson's word for copying others, because each person must take himself for better or worse and till the one plot of ground given to him.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, every heart vibrates to what when it hears the command to trust thyself?

That iron string sounds in every heart, Emerson writes, and great men have always answered it by accepting the place divine providence found for them.

Emerson's Self-Reliance belongs to which New England movement that drew on Romanticism and German Idealism?

Transcendentalism flourished in New England in Emerson's day and prized nature, individualism and reform, values that run all through the essay.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, which phrase dismisses travelling, since a tourist's sad self comes along on every trip?

A fool's paradise is Emerson's verdict on travelling: he dreams of being intoxicated with beauty abroad, then wakes there beside the same sad self he fled from.

Which 1851 novel has been read as a critique of Emerson's Self-Reliance, through the life and death of its captain?

Moby-Dick gives Captain Ahab a self-trust so extreme it destroys him, which critics read as Melville's warning about pushing Emerson's idea to solipsism.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, which flowers under the window make no reference to former ones and exist with God today?

Roses, Emerson says, are perfect in every moment of their existence, while man postpones or remembers and so never lives in the present.

Emerson's Self-Reliance likens society to which kind of business, whose members trade liberty for secure bread?

A joint-stock company is Emerson's image for society, which he calls a conspiracy against its members: they agree to surrender liberty and culture so each shareholder's bread is secure.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, believing that what is true in your private heart is true for all men is what?

Genius, for Emerson, means speaking your own latent conviction, because the inmost in due time becomes the outmost and turns out to be the universal sense.

Emerson's Self-Reliance begins with the speaker reading original, unconventional verses written by whom?

An eminent painter's verses matter to Emerson less for any idea in them than for the sentiment they instil, which the soul hears as an admonition.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, what do we recognize in every great work, returning with a certain alienated majesty?

Our own rejected thoughts come back in great art, Emerson warns, so we should hold to a spontaneous impression most firmly when every voice is against it.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, the great man amid the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of what?

Solitude makes it easy to live by our own opinion, Emerson admits, and the world makes it easy to live by the world's; the great man keeps the first in the middle of the second.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, which single word would the speaker write on the lintels of his door-post?

Whim is his answer to anyone demanding reasons: he hopes it is something better at last, but he cannot spend the day in explanation.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, the speaker says that what he must do is all that concerns him, not what?

What the people think is easy to live by, Emerson says, and his rule is harder because others always believe they know your duty better than you do.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, the civilized man has built a coach but has lost the use of what?

His feet are the price of the coach, one of Emerson's examples of society gaining new arts and losing old instincts, so that it never truly advances.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, which playwright had no master to teach him and will never be made by studying his plays?

Shakespeare, like Franklin, Washington, Bacon and Newton, is for Emerson a unique whose best part could not be borrowed, which is why imitation fails.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, which name is given to the primary wisdom, the source also called Spontaneity or Instinct?

Intuition is Emerson's name for the deep force behind which analysis cannot go; all later teachings, he puns, are merely tuitions.

Emerson's Self-Reliance ends by saying nothing can bring you peace but yourself and the triumph of what?

Principles, not luck, close the essay: Emerson warns that a political victory or a rise of rents may lift your spirits, but good days do not come from outside.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, God will not have his work, the divine idea each person represents, made manifest by whom?

Cowards only half express themselves, Emerson says, whereas a man is relieved and gay once he has put his heart into his work and done his best.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, guides, redeemers and benefactors obey the Almighty effort by advancing on what?

Chaos and the Dark are what Emerson sends his readers against, as grown men rather than minors and invalids hiding in a protected corner.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, which stage of life yields to nobody while four or five adults prattle and play to it?

Infancy is undivided, its eye as yet unconquered, Emerson says, which is why grown-ups are disconcerted when they look into a baby's face.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, the healthy attitude of human nature is the nonchalance of boys who are sure of what?

A dinner being certain, such boys would disdain as much as a lord to do or say anything to win favour, and Emerson wants adults to be that free.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, a boy passing verdicts on his elders is likened to which part of a playhouse?

The pit held a theatre's cheap floor seats, whose occupants never hesitated to voice an opinion of the performance, just as Emerson's boy gives a genuine verdict.

Emerson's Self-Reliance says a publicly committed man has no Lethe; in Greek myth, Lethe is the river of what?

Forgetfulness came to all who drank from Lethe, and Emerson wishes a man who has once spoken with éclat could likewise shed his reputation and judge afresh.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, the speaker answers an adviser's doubts about his impulses by vowing to live from whom?

The Devil is his retort when the adviser warns that his impulses may come from below, not from above: no law can be sacred to him but that of his nature.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, what does the speaker call the money he shamefully gives to miscellaneous popular charities?

A wicked dollar is his name for it, and he hopes one day to have the manhood to withhold it, though he would go to prison for those he truly belongs to.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, most men playing the blindman's-buff of party and sect have bound their eyes with what?

A handkerchief of one opinion or another blinds them, Emerson says, so that once he knows a preacher's sect he can anticipate every argument the man will make.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, the multitude's sour faces are put on and off as the wind blows and what directs?

A newspaper can turn the crowd's mood, Emerson says, so its sour faces have no deep cause; yet its anger is harder to bear than that of the cultivated classes.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, an institution such as Quakerism or Methodism is described as what of one man?

The lengthened shadow of one man is how Emerson sees every institution, so that all history resolves itself into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, the voyage of the best ship, made of a hundred tacks, is which kind of line?

Zigzag up close, the ship's course straightens to its average tendency when seen from far enough, which is how Emerson defends honest actions that seem to disagree.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, society moves onward like what, while the water composing it does not?

A wave keeps its shape while its particles change, and for Emerson a nation is the same: its people die next year and their experience dies with them.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, which two pagan gods must be woken in our Saxon breasts as courage and constancy?

Thor and Woden stand for a state of war against temptation, which Emerson says is waged in smooth times simply by speaking the truth.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, a sturdy New Hampshire or Vermont lad who tries every trade is worth a hundred what?

City dolls lose heart if not set up in an office within a year of college, Emerson says, while the country lad has not one chance but a hundred.

Emerson's Self-Reliance was published in which 1841 collection, alongside Compensation and The Over-Soul?

Essays: First Series gathered twelve pieces in 1841, several of them reworking ideas from lectures Emerson had given in Boston on the philosophy of history.

The Latin motto opening Emerson's Self-Reliance, a warning not to seek outside yourself, is from which Roman satirist?

Persius wrote the line in his first satire, and Emerson set it above the essay beside verses by Beaumont and Fletcher and a quatrain of his own.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, Napoleon conquered Europe by which practice of falling back on naked valor without aids?

The bivouac shows Emerson's point that improvements in the art of war matter less than courage; Napoleon held that a perfect army would grind its own grain and bake its own bread.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, which biblical figure who fled, leaving his coat behind, shows how to drop a stale theory?

Joseph tore free of Potiphar's wife and left his garment in her hand, and Emerson wants a thinker to leave an outgrown theory behind just as quickly.

In Emerson's Self-Reliance, which ancient sage says the blessed Immortals are swift to the persevering mortal?

Zoroaster, the Persian prophet, supplies the motto for Emerson's self-helping man, whom the gods love because he held on his way when men hated him.