If you accept your thoughts as inspirations from the Supreme Intelligence, obey them when they prescribe difficult duties, because they come only so long as they are used; or, if your scepticism reaches to the last verge, and you have no confidence in any foreign mind, then be brave, because there is one good opinion which must always be of consequence to you, namely, your own.
Where these words come from
- Lots of sources credit Ralph Waldo Emerson with this, and they agree with each other. The book or the speech it first came from hasn't turned up yet.
- https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69258
More from Ralph Waldo Emerson
See allThe creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
Ralph Waldo EmersonWrite it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.Ralph Waldo EmersonWe will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds.Ralph Waldo EmersonThe imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.Ralph Waldo EmersonHitch your wagon to a star.Ralph Waldo EmersonKnowledge is the antidote to fear.Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo EmersonWrite it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.Ralph Waldo EmersonWe will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds.Ralph Waldo EmersonThe imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.Ralph Waldo EmersonHitch your wagon to a star.Ralph Waldo EmersonKnowledge is the antidote to fear.Ralph Waldo EmersonMore on courage
You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
Marcus AureliusDisinterestedness, as shown in indifference to the ordinary bribes and influences of conduct,—a purpose so sincere and generous that it cannot be tempted aside by any prospects of wealth or other private advantage.Ralph Waldo EmersonSelf-love is, in almost all men, such an overweight, that they are incredulous of a man’s habitual preference of the general good to his own; but when they see it proved by sacrifices of ease, wealth, rank, and of life itself, there is no limit to their admiration.Ralph Waldo EmersonSelf-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grew.Ralph Waldo EmersonThe third excellence is courage, the perfect will, which no terrors can shake, which is attracted by frowns or threats or hostile armies, nay, needs these to awake and fan its reserved energies into a pure flame, and is never quite itself until the hazard is extreme; then it is serene and fertile, and all its powers play well.Ralph Waldo EmersonAnimal resistance, the instinct of the male animal when cornered, is no doubt common; but the pure article, courage with eyes, courage with conduct, self-possession at the cannon’s mouth, cheerfulness in lonely adherence to the right, is the endowment of elevated characters.Ralph Waldo Emerson
Marcus AureliusDisinterestedness, as shown in indifference to the ordinary bribes and influences of conduct,—a purpose so sincere and generous that it cannot be tempted aside by any prospects of wealth or other private advantage.Ralph Waldo EmersonSelf-love is, in almost all men, such an overweight, that they are incredulous of a man’s habitual preference of the general good to his own; but when they see it proved by sacrifices of ease, wealth, rank, and of life itself, there is no limit to their admiration.Ralph Waldo EmersonSelf-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grew.Ralph Waldo EmersonThe third excellence is courage, the perfect will, which no terrors can shake, which is attracted by frowns or threats or hostile armies, nay, needs these to awake and fan its reserved energies into a pure flame, and is never quite itself until the hazard is extreme; then it is serene and fertile, and all its powers play well.Ralph Waldo EmersonAnimal resistance, the instinct of the male animal when cornered, is no doubt common; but the pure article, courage with eyes, courage with conduct, self-possession at the cannon’s mouth, cheerfulness in lonely adherence to the right, is the endowment of elevated characters.Ralph Waldo Emerson