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American intellectual and author Ralph Waldo Emerson helped lead the transcendentalism movement, a 19th-century school that looked to individual intuition, rather than scientific rationalism, as the highest source of knowledge. In “Self-Reliance” (1841), one of Emerson’s most important works, he expressed his optimistic faith in the power of individual achievement and originality. He also considered the overarching need to discover and develop a relationship with nature and with God. An actor reads this excerpt from the essay.