Self-Reliance and Other Essays

I recommend this book because it had a great influence on me as a young child. Moving through the world, particularly as a black woman, requires a great deal of self-reliance and resourcefulness. This book/essay speaks to universal truths that are often forgotten.

I found myself equipping my toolbox with quotes that have been relevant to my present day working life. I learned how to relate in a deeper way to myself and society while crafting a value system that, as I age, is allowed to become malleable.

I am drawn to Emerson’s essays, of which this is the most famous, because of the way that they encourage us to be self-sufficient. "Nothing can bring you peace but yourself," he encourages his reader; "insist on yourself; never imitate."

I love the irony of learning this by reading someone else since it offers an important life lesson: we can only become independent by learning from others. Writing in the mid-nineteenth century, Emerson was trying to encourage a whole nation, the USA, to become independent from the Old World. As such, his essays mark something like the start of the… show more.