Essays, First Series
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Self-Reliance

“Ne te quaesiveris extra."

“Man is his own star; and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man,
Commands all light, all influence, all fate;
Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.”

Epilogue to Beaumont and Fletcher’s Honest Man’s Fortune.

Cast the bantling on the rocks,
Suckle him with the she-wolf’s teat,
Wintered with the hawk and fox.
Power and speed be hands and feet.

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This complete text of Essays, First Series by Ralph Waldo Emerson is in the public domain.
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Page last updated on April 2003. Complete book.
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