Emerson on Self-Reliance and Consistency

Emerson says the other thing that prevents trust in oneself is the mistaken idea that consistency

is a virtue. People judge who we are by our past acts and words, Emerson says,

and so we are afraid to go against them today. Why drag around this “corpse of

your memory,” Emerson asks, when really there is nothing to be lost by contradicting

it? The individual who would be self-reliant should instead simply live in the present.

Such consistency is “the hobgoblin of little minds,” and every individual should freely contradict

themselves without fear of the possibility of being misunderstood. Doing so would put a person in the

company of all the famous and good people in Western culture—whom Emerson goes on to list.