"Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons"
About this Quote
Emerson slips the knife in gently: the real betrayal isn’t cowardice, it’s comparison. “Every man has his own courage” is a radical, democratizing claim in a culture that loves a single template of bravery - the battlefield, the podium, the heroic gesture. Emerson’s intent is to uncouple courage from spectacle. Bravery isn’t one standardized posture; it’s a private capacity calibrated to a person’s temperament, obligations, and moral eyesight.
The subtext is pure Emersonian self-reliance, but with a darker edge. The moment you “seek in [your]self the courage of other persons,” you stop reading your own moral instruments and start chasing someone else’s script. That’s the betrayal: not of society, but of the self’s internal authority. He’s diagnosing a psychological trap that still feels contemporary - the way borrowed ideals turn into self-contempt. If you measure your nerve by another person’s bravado, you’ll always come up short, because you’re grading yourself with the wrong rubric.
Context matters: Emerson is writing in 19th-century America, where public manhood, religious conformity, and emerging market competition all reward imitation dressed up as virtue. His line pushes back against that social machinery. Courage, for Emerson, is less about charging forward than about refusing counterfeit standards. It’s the nerve to be governed by your own perception, even when the crowd has already decided what bravery is supposed to look like.
The subtext is pure Emersonian self-reliance, but with a darker edge. The moment you “seek in [your]self the courage of other persons,” you stop reading your own moral instruments and start chasing someone else’s script. That’s the betrayal: not of society, but of the self’s internal authority. He’s diagnosing a psychological trap that still feels contemporary - the way borrowed ideals turn into self-contempt. If you measure your nerve by another person’s bravado, you’ll always come up short, because you’re grading yourself with the wrong rubric.
Context matters: Emerson is writing in 19th-century America, where public manhood, religious conformity, and emerging market competition all reward imitation dressed up as virtue. His line pushes back against that social machinery. Courage, for Emerson, is less about charging forward than about refusing counterfeit standards. It’s the nerve to be governed by your own perception, even when the crowd has already decided what bravery is supposed to look like.
Quote Details
| Topic | Confidence |
|---|
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