“A [person] should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across [their] mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet, [they] dismiss without notice [their] thought, because it is [theirs]. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
“. . . We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have [Its] work made manifest by cowards.
“. . . We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity.
“. . . Insist on yourself; never imitate.
“. . . Trust [yourself]; every heart vibrates to that iron string. . . . The magnetism which all original action exerts is explained when we inquire the reason of self-trust. Who is the Trustee?”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson,
— from his essay, “Self-Reliance,” written in 1841
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