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Emerson Self Reliance

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Emerson starts of the first pages of his enlightened essay with 3 epigraphs one in Latin that translates to “Do not seek outside yourself” and That is only one of Emerson’s suggestions you take to achieve self reliance. The next epigraph in Emerson’s first pages is a six-line stanza from “Beaumont and Fletcher's Honest Man's Fortune” and after that is one is a four-line stanza that seems to have been written by Emerson himself. All three epigraphs stress the necessity of relying on on your self for knowledge and guidance which is the main idea of basically the whole essay. Emerson talks about originality, self trust, character, society and conforming to it, nature, family, and religion. Now don’t be fooled I am not listing all of Emerson’s points in order I am simply explaining all he covers in his essay to further explain why or why they cannot work in 2017. Emerson begins his argument with individualism by talking about how you should form your own ideas instead of conforming to others ideas. "To believe that what is true in your private heart is true for all men — that is genius." Someone who doubts someone else’s individual opinion and chooses to conform his own opinion to what society has to say afraid if being criticized himself and he lacks the ability to even produce a thought of sufficient power and originality. So because the individual can not form his own opinion then he is a victim of society and he is handed down thoughts by others who have agreed on what is

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