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 Occident and American Jewish Advocate The Occident and American Jewish Advocate The Occident and American Jewish Advocate or simply The Occident (1843-1869), was the first general Jewish periodical published in the United States. (The only earlier periodical, Solomon Henry Jackson's "The Jew" was published as an anti-missionary journal). Compiled by Rabbi Isaac Leeser from inception through 1868, in 1869 the publication was edited by Mayer Sulzberger. (Sulzberger, a successful attorney was a disciple of Leeser's in his youth. Leeser hoped Sulzberger would enter the rabbinate, but Sulzberger chose a career in law instead, but pledged to Leeser that he would edit the Occident for a