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Who so would be a man must be a nonconformist.
He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness,
but must explore if it be goodness.
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
Absolve you to yourself,
and you shall have the suffrage of the world.
I remember an answer which when quite young
I was prompted to make to a valued adviser,
who was wont to importune me
with the dear old doctrines of the church.
On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions,
if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested,
"But these impulses may be from below, not from above."
I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such;
but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil."
No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.
Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this;
the only right is what is after my constitution,
the only wrong what is against it.
A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition,
as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he.
I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names,
to large societies and dead institutions.
Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right.
I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.
If malice and vanity wear the coat of philanthropy, shall that pass?

Ralph Waldo Emerson