Based on the first paragraph of the essay "Self-Reliance," what are Emerson's beliefs about self-reliance? Cite evidence from the text to support your response.

Even in the first paragraph of his famous essay, Emerson turns the notion of wisdom upside down - wisdom is not the essence of great people's thought. Wisdom is the essence of your own thought, and self-reliance is the courage to believe yourself, instead of always relying on others. "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" - Emerson thinks that the real genius is in the individual that seeks universality, and dares to become universal. People who are perceived as the wisest, such as Plato, Moses, etc., are actually those who have listened to their intuition and were brave enough to make a statement of it, instead of listening to others and interpreting them. "In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty." Our rejected thoughts are the consequence of the fact that we lacked the courage to admit and declare those thoughts as our own, unique, original, wise.

Emerson believes that people must rely on their intuition rather than on the rules that society has put forth. He also conveys that people must accept and nurture themselves in order to reach their full potential, which is the philosophy behind individualism. Along with these beliefs, Emerson also stresses the importance of honest hard work as a requisite for becoming self-reliant. ~ from Plato