July, Forth

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, that is genius.

Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist.

I ought to go upright and vital, and speak rude truth in all ways.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

I will have no covenants but proximities.

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other.

Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

- from "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happy independence Day!