Self-Reliance Self-Reliance "Self-Reliance" is an 1841 essay written by American transcendentalist philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes: the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow their own instincts and ideas. It is the source of one of Emerson's most famous quotations: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." This essay is an analysis into the nature of the “aboriginal self on which a universal reliance may be grounded.” The first hint of the philosophy
Tools for Self Reliance Self Reliance struggled to survive, with 60-70 volunteer groups across the country putting in thousands of hours of practical and administrative work. Schools, universities, Rotarians and churches backed them up with tool collections, transport and money. Funds were always limited, though the situation occasionally improved thanks to a successful BBC Week's Good Cause appeal by Bishop Trevor Huddleston (1983), and support from Quaker and other foundations. By the late 1980s and early 1990s most of these problems had diminished and the organisation was providing some 40-50,000 tools a year to seven countries in Africa and Central America. Tools for Self