What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is, that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character.
R. W. Emerson, Self Reliance from Essays: First Series (1841)
There was a point in my life when I aspired to change my destiny by changing my thoughts. I mediated on certain passages from books that contained uplifting inspiration. That was four years ago and I still have this quote memorized.
This essay is still a favorite that I read regularly.
William Dare 