Self-Reliance (Emerson)
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40 free Self-Reliance (Emerson) trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self-Reliance is one of the most assigned works in American literature, and one of the most quotable. Its sentences turn up on posters and in graduation speeches, often far from the argument they were written to serve. This multiple choice quiz follows the essay from its opening paragraphs to its last line. It asks about the famous aphorisms, the odd and vivid images Emerson reaches for, the historical and biblical figures he calls on, and the background of the essay itself. Every answer comes with a short explanation that puts the line back in context. It is written for students reviewing the essay for class, for teachers who want a ready check on the reading, and for anyone who has met Emerson only in quotation and wants to see how much of the real thing they know.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Emerson's Self-Reliance, a foolish consistency adored by statesmen and divines is the hobgoblin of what?
Little minds
Little minds cling to yesterday's opinions, Emerson argues, while a great soul speaks its conviction today even if that contradicts everything it said before.
Q 02According to Emerson's Self-Reliance, whoever would be a man must be what?
A nonconformist
A nonconformist, for Emerson, must not be hindered by the name of goodness but must explore for himself whether it really is goodness.
Q 03In Emerson's Self-Reliance, Socrates, Jesus, Galileo and Newton show that to be great is to be what?
Misunderstood
Misunderstood, Emerson notes, was the fate of Pythagoras, Luther and Copernicus too, so the fear of it is no reason to hide a change of heart.
Q 04In Emerson's Self-Reliance, every man's education brings the conviction that envy is ignorance and imitation is what?
Suicide
Suicide is Emerson's word for copying others, because each person must take himself for better or worse and till the one plot of ground given to him.
Q 05In Emerson's Self-Reliance, every heart vibrates to what when it hears the command to trust thyself?
That iron string
That iron string sounds in every heart, Emerson writes, and great men have always answered it by accepting the place divine providence found for them.
Q 06Emerson's Self-Reliance belongs to which New England movement that drew on Romanticism and German Idealism?
Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism flourished in New England in Emerson's day and prized nature, individualism and reform, values that run all through the essay.
Q 07In Emerson's Self-Reliance, which phrase dismisses travelling, since a tourist's sad self comes along on every trip?
A fool's paradise
A fool's paradise is Emerson's verdict on travelling: he dreams of being intoxicated with beauty abroad, then wakes there beside the same sad self he fled from.
Q 08Which 1851 novel has been read as a critique of Emerson's Self-Reliance, through the life and death of its captain?
Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick gives Captain Ahab a self-trust so extreme it destroys him, which critics read as Melville's warning about pushing Emerson's idea to solipsism.
Q 09In Emerson's Self-Reliance, which flowers under the window make no reference to former ones and exist with God today?
Roses
Roses, Emerson says, are perfect in every moment of their existence, while man postpones or remembers and so never lives in the present.
Q 10Emerson's Self-Reliance likens society to which kind of business, whose members trade liberty for secure bread?
A joint-stock company
A joint-stock company is Emerson's image for society, which he calls a conspiracy against its members: they agree to surrender liberty and culture so each shareholder's bread is secure.
Q 11In Emerson's Self-Reliance, believing that what is true in your private heart is true for all men is what?
Genius
Genius, for Emerson, means speaking your own latent conviction, because the inmost in due time becomes the outmost and turns out to be the universal sense.
Q 12Emerson's Self-Reliance begins with the speaker reading original, unconventional verses written by whom?
An eminent painter
An eminent painter's verses matter to Emerson less for any idea in them than for the sentiment they instil, which the soul hears as an admonition.
Q 13In Emerson's Self-Reliance, what do we recognize in every great work, returning with a certain alienated majesty?
Our own rejected thoughts
Q 21In Emerson's Self-Reliance, God will not have his work, the divine idea each person represents, made manifest by whom?
Cowards
Cowards only half express themselves, Emerson says, whereas a man is relieved and gay once he has put his heart into his work and done his best.
Q 22In Emerson's Self-Reliance, guides, redeemers and benefactors obey the Almighty effort by advancing on what?
Chaos and the Dark
Chaos and the Dark are what Emerson sends his readers against, as grown men rather than minors and invalids hiding in a protected corner.
Q 23In Emerson's Self-Reliance, which stage of life yields to nobody while four or five adults prattle and play to it?
Infancy
Our own rejected thoughts come back in great art, Emerson warns, so we should hold to a spontaneous impression most firmly when every voice is against it.
Q 14In Emerson's Self-Reliance, the great man amid the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of what?
Solitude
Solitude makes it easy to live by our own opinion, Emerson admits, and the world makes it easy to live by the world's; the great man keeps the first in the middle of the second.
Q 15In Emerson's Self-Reliance, which single word would the speaker write on the lintels of his door-post?
Whim
Whim is his answer to anyone demanding reasons: he hopes it is something better at last, but he cannot spend the day in explanation.
Q 16In Emerson's Self-Reliance, the speaker says that what he must do is all that concerns him, not what?
What the people think
What the people think is easy to live by, Emerson says, and his rule is harder because others always believe they know your duty better than you do.
Q 17In Emerson's Self-Reliance, the civilized man has built a coach but has lost the use of what?
His feet
His feet are the price of the coach, one of Emerson's examples of society gaining new arts and losing old instincts, so that it never truly advances.
Q 18In Emerson's Self-Reliance, which playwright had no master to teach him and will never be made by studying his plays?
Shakespeare
Shakespeare, like Franklin, Washington, Bacon and Newton, is for Emerson a unique whose best part could not be borrowed, which is why imitation fails.
Q 19In Emerson's Self-Reliance, which name is given to the primary wisdom, the source also called Spontaneity or Instinct?
Intuition
Intuition is Emerson's name for the deep force behind which analysis cannot go; all later teachings, he puns, are merely tuitions.
Q 20Emerson's Self-Reliance ends by saying nothing can bring you peace but yourself and the triumph of what?
Principles
Principles, not luck, close the essay: Emerson warns that a political victory or a rise of rents may lift your spirits, but good days do not come from outside.
Infancy is undivided, its eye as yet unconquered, Emerson says, which is why grown-ups are disconcerted when they look into a baby's face.
Q 24In Emerson's Self-Reliance, the healthy attitude of human nature is the nonchalance of boys who are sure of what?
A dinner
A dinner being certain, such boys would disdain as much as a lord to do or say anything to win favour, and Emerson wants adults to be that free.
Q 25In Emerson's Self-Reliance, a boy passing verdicts on his elders is likened to which part of a playhouse?
The pit
The pit held a theatre's cheap floor seats, whose occupants never hesitated to voice an opinion of the performance, just as Emerson's boy gives a genuine verdict.
Q 26Emerson's Self-Reliance says a publicly committed man has no Lethe; in Greek myth, Lethe is the river of what?
Forgetfulness
Forgetfulness came to all who drank from Lethe, and Emerson wishes a man who has once spoken with éclat could likewise shed his reputation and judge afresh.
Q 27In Emerson's Self-Reliance, the speaker answers an adviser's doubts about his impulses by vowing to live from whom?
The Devil
The Devil is his retort when the adviser warns that his impulses may come from below, not from above: no law can be sacred to him but that of his nature.
Q 28In Emerson's Self-Reliance, what does the speaker call the money he shamefully gives to miscellaneous popular charities?
A wicked dollar
A wicked dollar is his name for it, and he hopes one day to have the manhood to withhold it, though he would go to prison for those he truly belongs to.
Q 29In Emerson's Self-Reliance, most men playing the blindman's-buff of party and sect have bound their eyes with what?
A handkerchief
A handkerchief of one opinion or another blinds them, Emerson says, so that once he knows a preacher's sect he can anticipate every argument the man will make.
Q 30In Emerson's Self-Reliance, the multitude's sour faces are put on and off as the wind blows and what directs?
A newspaper
A newspaper can turn the crowd's mood, Emerson says, so its sour faces have no deep cause; yet its anger is harder to bear than that of the cultivated classes.