What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance (1841). copy citation

Context

“I cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic right. Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.
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.” source

Meaning and analysis

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