What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes from Self-Reliance

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For non-conformity the world whips you with its displeasure.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes from Self-Reliance

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I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested, — "But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes from Self-Reliance

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We shun the rugged battle of fate where strength is born.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes from Self-Reliance

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