Wednesday, May 28, 2008

"What I Must Do . . ."



"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 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 your own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson


*Meanness, here, refers to being small-minded/inferior, not "mean" as in lacking kindness.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just ran across your blog. Very nice entries! This Thoreau quote is great. I have been doing Bikram yoga for a few years, and it has changed my life, and I love it, and I cleared up an old knee injury to boot. What do you think of Bikram yoga?

MS said...

A great quote and certainly apropos considering some of the holier-than-thou attitudes out there. As always, thank you for being a reasonable, no-drama yoga voice!