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
On Love and Death Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" to illustrate a central theme of the essays: an "erotic longing for death." The final section of the essays is devoted to a comparison of two mythological accounts of love: the stories of Orpheus and Jesus Christ. Süskind likens the two figures to each other in that both ventured into the realm of death because of their love; however, Süskind is critical of Jesus for his almost political motives and his "distance and inhumanity", in the sense that he was completely immune to the frenzy of love. He praises Orpheus for his courage and selflessness. While