Friday Feature: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a Transcendentalist Unitarian who has greatly influenced my own philosophical religious development.  His essay on Self-Reliance especially strikes a chord with me at this time...

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs. 

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

-Emerson

Yeah... I want to have strength stemming from only my own courage.

I want to only cultivate friendships with those who offer unconditional support.

I am only interested in truth, not the facade of society.

Success is...

-to laugh often and love much

-to appreciate beauty

-to find the best in others

-to give of one's self

-to leave the world a bit better

-to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived
-Emerson