Self-Reliance

It contains the most thorough statement of one of his recurrent themes: the need for each person to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his or her own instincts and ideas.

It is the source of one of his most famous quotations: This essay is an analysis into the nature of the "aboriginal self on which a universal reliance may be grounded".

[3] The first hint of the philosophy that would become "Self-Reliance" was presented by Ralph Waldo Emerson as part of a sermon in September 1830 a month after his first marriage.

[4](p99) His wife Ellen was sick with tuberculosis[5] and, as Emerson's biographer Robert D. Richardson wrote, "Immortality had never been stronger or more desperately needed!

[8] Haijing Liang, in her analysis of "Self-Reliance", explains how Emerson "encourages the readers to free themselves from the constraints of conformity and give themselves back to their nature".

[8] Emerson mentions "but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

Emerson explains the ultimate form of happiness is achieved when a person learns and adapts an individualistic lifestyle based on their own values.

"[11] Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick[13] has been read as a critique of Emerson's philosophy of self-reliance, embodied particularly in the life and death of Ahab.

"[15] In his work, the transcendentalist argues that no person, specifically individuals who are self-reliant, exists without a slight connection to a higher power.

A single woman (portrayed by Hope Davis), who is familiar with the Emerson quote, goes on dates with several men, each of whom tries to impress her by referencing the line, but misquotes it and misattributes it to W.C. Fields, Karl Marx, or Cicero.

[16] This quote is also referenced in one of the episodes of the television show The Mentalist when Patrick Jane meets a crime boss and they start a dialogue.