Unless you believe in
yourself, only noodles will believe in you, and they but tepidly. If
your experience seems trivial to you, it must seem trivial to us. If
your thoughts are not fervid convictions, or sincere doubts, they will
not have the power of convictions and doubts. To believe in yourself is
the first step; to proclaim your belief the next. You cannot assume the
power of another. No jay becomes an eagle by borrowing a few eagle
feathers. It is true that your sincerity will not be a guarantee of
power. You may believe that to be important and novel which we all
recognise as trivial and old. You may be a madman, and believe yourself
a prophet. You may be a mere echo, and believe yourself a voice. These
are among the delusions against which none of us are protected. But if
Sincerity is not necessarily a guarantee of power, it is a necessary
condition of power, and no genius or prophet can exist without it."
"The highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton," says
Emerson, "is that they set at nought books and traditions, and spoke
not what men thought, but what they thought.
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