As a Man Thinketh
Self-Help, Money and Success
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Self-Reliance
Free to read. No account needed.
- Language
- English
- First published
- 1841
- Reading time
- 45 minutes
- Chapters
- 1 chapter
About this book
Self-Reliance is the most famous essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson, first published in 1841 in his Essays: First Series.
Its message is to trust yourself: believe your own thoughts, do not simply copy others or follow the crowd, and do not be afraid of saying something different tomorrow from what you said today. Emerson writes in short, striking sentences, and many of them have become well-known quotations, such as "Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist." The essay can be read in under an hour, and it rewards a second reading.
“Man is his own star; and the soul that can\ Render an honest and a perfect man,\ Commands all light, all influence, all fate;\ Nothing to him falls early or too late.\ Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,\ Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.”
About this edition
Source
Project Gutenberg (eBook #2944)
Text version
Project Gutenberg eBook #2944 (updated 10 February 2021), downloaded 7 November 2026. Only the essay "Self-Reliance", the second of the twelve essays in Essays: First Series (1841), was imported, with its mottoes; the rest of the volume (title page, contents and the other eleven essays) was not.
License
Public domain
Copyright status last verified: 9 November 2026
Category
More in Self-Help, Money and Success
- Read: As a Man Thinketh
- Read: Pushing to the Front
Pushing to the Front
Self-Help, Money and Success
- Read: Self-Help
Self-Help
Self-Help, Money and Success
- Read: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Self-Help, Money and Success