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
The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life him, that he found his ethics within a pluralist meta-ethics. James, William: "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life" -- "International Journal of Ethics", volume 1, number 3 (April 1891), pp. 330–354 (Available via JSTOR) The essay was also featured in: The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life" was an essay by the philosopher William James, which he first delivered as a lecture to the Yale Philosophical Club, in 1891. It was later included in the collection, "The Will to Believe and other Essays in Popular Philosophy." He drew a distinction between three