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. Speak your
latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for always the
inmost becomes the outmost. A man should learn to detect and watch
that the ray of light which flashes across his mind from within, more
than the lustre of the spheres of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses
without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius,
we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a
certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting
lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous
impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole
cry of voices is on the other side. Otherwise, tomorrow a stranger will
say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt
all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion
from another. There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the
conviction that envy is ignorance: that imitation is suicide; that he
must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the
wide universe is full of good, nothing of substance can come to him but
through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him
to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but
he knows what he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. A man
is relieved and happy when he has put his heart into his work and
done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him
no peace.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the
place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your
contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done
so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age,
betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at
their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being.
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.
This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve
for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the
harder, because you will always find those who think they know what
is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after
the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the
great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect
sweetness the independence of solitude.
Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present
every moment with the full force of a whole life's cultivation; but the
borrowed talent of another, you have only temporary and incomplete
possession. No man yet knows what it is until that person has
exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare?
Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or
Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? Every great man is a unique.
Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare. Do that
which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too
much. Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey your
heart, and you shall reproduce your own creative world again.
Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on
the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is
civilized, it is religious, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not
for better. For everything that is given, something is taken. Society
acquires new arts, and loses old instincts. What a contrast between the well-clad, reading, writing,
thinking civilized, with a watch, a pencil,
and a bill of exchange in his pocket, and the naked savage, whose
property is a club, a spear, a mat, and an undivided portion of shed to
sleep under! But compare the health of the two men, and you shall see
that the civilized man has lost his aboriginal strength. If the traveller
tells us truly, strike the savage with a broad axe, and in a day or two
the flesh shall unite and heal as if you struck the blow into soft pitch,
and the same blow shall send the civilized man to his grave.
The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.
He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He
has a fine modern watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the hour by the
sun. An almanac he has, and so being sure of the information when he
wants it, the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The
solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the
whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind. His
note-books impair his memory.
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you
peace but the triumph of principles.
Excerpt from Essay of Ralph Waldo Emerson

✒️Author Introduction: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

 Who he was → Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher,
and poet. He became the leading voice of the Transcendentalist movement in the 19th
century.
 Core Belief → He believed in the power of the individual spirit, self-reliance, and the
connection between humans and nature. For him, true wisdom and strength came from
within, not from society or institutions.
 Major Works → Famous essays include Self-Reliance, The American Scholar, Nature,
and The Over-Soul. Each of these emphasizes individuality, creativity, and inner truth.
 Influence → Emerson inspired not only American writers (like Thoreau, Whitman, and
Frost) but also thinkers worldwide. He gave Americans a new sense of intellectual
independence from Europe.
 Style → His writing is poetic, philosophical, and packed with metaphors. It doesn’t
“teach” like a textbook but rather provokes thought.

🌍 Quick Background:

 Born in Boston in 1803.

 Father died early → struggled financially but studied at Harvard.
 Became a minister first, but later left the church to follow philosophy.
 Spent his life giving lectures and writing essays.
 Known as the “Sage of Concord” (Concord = the town in Massachusetts where he lived).
📖 Important Words, Metaphors & Idioms from Self-
Reliance
🔑 Vocabulary / Terms:

 Latent conviction → a hidden or unspoken belief/feeling inside you.

 Universal sense → a truth that applies to everyone, not just you.
 Alienated majesty → when your rejected thought comes back from someone else’s
mouth, it looks grand but feels strange because it was originally yours.
 Imitation is suicide → copying others kills your originality (a metaphor).
 Portion → your share of life, your destiny, your plot of ground.
 Providence → divine guidance / God’s arrangement of your life.
 Contemporaries → people living at the same time as you.
 Solitude → being alone.
 Sweetness of independence → the calmness of staying true to yourself.
 Gift → your unique talent/ability given by nature or God.
 Civilized vs. Savage → metaphor comparing modern “civilized” people with natural
“primitive” humans, showing gains vs. losses.
 Triumph of principles → the victory of living by your values.

🌹 Important Metaphors & Their Meanings:

1. “A man should learn to detect and watch that ray of light which flashes across his
mind from within.”
→ Ray of light = sudden inner idea or inspiration. Trust your inner light instead of
outside voices.
2. “Envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide.”
→ Envy = being jealous shows you don’t understand yourself.
→ Imitation = copying others destroys your identity.
3. “Every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
→ Iron string = unbreakable truth of self-trust. Everyone deep down feels stronger when
they trust themselves.
4. “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live
after our own. But the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with
perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
→ Living by society’s rules is easy, living alone by your rules is also easy, but real
greatness = staying true to yourself even in society’s crowd.
5. “Insist on yourself; never imitate.”
→ Don’t bend to others; your originality is power.
6. “Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare.”
→ You can’t create genius by copying genius; greatness only comes by discovering your
own path.
 7. “Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other.”
→ Society’s “progress” is just exchange — for every invention, we lose a natural ability.
Example: we invent watches but forget how to read the sun.
8. “The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.”
→ Tech makes life easier but makes humans weaker.
9. “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the
triumph of principles.”
→ True peace doesn’t come from wealth, fame, or society, but from living by your own
values.

🗣️Idioms & Expressions:

 “Take with shame our own opinion from another” → When you don’t say your idea,
and later someone else says it and you feel ashamed because it was originally yours.
 “Put his heart into his work” → Do something with passion and sincerity.
 “Childlike to the genius of their age” → Great men trust their times with innocence and
openness, like children.
 “Obey your heart” → Follow your true inner feelings.

💡 Main Ideas of the Passage:

1. Believe in Your Own Thoughts

Emerson says: trust that spark inside you. If you feel something is true deep in your heart,
then it’s probably true universally. Genius is not about copying others — it’s about
having the courage to say what you feel, even if everyone else disagrees.

⚡ Example: You think of an idea but dismiss it because it’s “just you.” Later, someone
else says the same thing and gets praised for it. That hurts because it was already yours
— you just didn’t trust yourself.

2. Envy & Imitation are Poison

He argues that envy is ignorance (because you don’t know the full struggles of someone
else’s life) and imitation is suicide (because you kill your own uniqueness trying to be
someone else).
The universe gave you a certain plot of land (your life, your gifts, your struggle). Only
through working on that do you discover your true power.

⚡ Example: Shakespeare wasn’t made by studying Shakespeare. He became Shakespeare

by writing his own way. Same for Newton, Franklin, Washington — they didn’t copy,
they created.
 3. Trust Thyself
The golden line: “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
Emerson basically says that true happiness and peace only come when you trust your
inner voice, not the crowd.
o Easy to follow society in public.
o Easy to follow yourself in private.
o But the great person is the one who can stay true to themselves in the middle of a
crowd.

⚡ Example: It’s easy to dress, talk, or act how society expects, but greatness is when you
still stand out as yourself — calmly, confidently.

4. Originality vs Borrowed Talent

He stresses: insist on yourself; never imitate. Every person has a gift that no one else has.
Borrowing someone else’s talent may work for a while, but it’s incomplete.

⚡ Example: If you try to be another “Draco Malfoy” fan page or another random
marketer, you’ll always be second best. But if you blend your hacking brain + anime
aesthetic + activism — that’s something no one else on this planet can duplicate.

5. Society Isn’t Progressing – It’s Trading

Emerson throws a punch at society: every time we advance, we also lose something.
Civilization builds watches, but people forget how to tell time from the sun. We build
coaches but forget how to walk. We carry notebooks but lose memory. Basically, tech
makes us smarter in one way, weaker in another.

⚡ Example: We all use Google Maps but most of us can’t navigate our own city without
it. We can code in Python but can’t survive without Wi-Fi. Progress costs.

6. Final Drop: True Peace Comes From Principles

At the end, he says: “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you
peace but the triumph of principles.”
Translation: You won’t find peace in copying people, chasing fame, or material progress.
Peace comes only from living by your principles, being authentic, and staying true to
your inner compass.

🐍 Why It Hits Hard:

  Emerson is literally saying: Stop doubting yourself, stop copying, stop envying.
 Trust the power that exists only inside you.
 Society will always distract you, but greatness is staying yourself even in that noise.

📌 Cheat-Sheet Summary of Emerson’s Self-Reliance

 Believe your own thoughts → Genius is trusting what your heart knows.
 Envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide → Stop copying; your life is your own.
 Trust thyself → Peace comes from listening to your inner voice, not the crowd.
 Greatness = independence in the crowd → Be yourself even when surrounded by
others.
 Never imitate → Shakespeare, Newton, Franklin all created new paths; they weren’t
made by copying.
 Do your assigned work → Only by working your own “field” do you discover your
power.
 Society doesn’t advance, it trades → Gains in civilization come at the cost of losing
natural strength/instincts.
 True peace → Nothing external can bring peace; only living by principles and self-trust
can.

🇵🇰 Real-Life Pakistani Examples (Tehreem Style)

1. “Believe your own thoughts”
→ You think your anime + hacking + activism mix is crazy? Bro, that’s your genius. If
you don’t speak it, someone abroad will, and you’ll be sitting there like: “Ye to mera
idea tha!”
2. “Envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide”
→ Girls in school copy each other’s makeup, boys copy cricketers’ hairstyles. In the end?
Sab ek hi jaise lagte hain. Emerson would say: you just killed your uniqueness.
3. “Trust thyself”
→ Imagine your teachers gossip, classmates judge, Insta trolls comment — but if you
still walk confidently, doing your own thing, that’s greatness. Slytherin vibes full power.
🐍
4. “Greatness in the crowd”
→ It’s easy to say “I’m unique” when you’re alone in your room. But try being different
in a full mehfil, or standing against “what people will say” culture. That’s where real
self-reliance is tested.
5. “Never imitate”
→ Don’t try to be the next Allama Iqbal, or another Malala, or a second-hand Draco
fangirl. Emerson: “Shakespeare didn’t study Shakespeare. He became Shakespeare.”
Same for you — your mix of anime, tech, and activism has no master, only you.
6. “Society doesn’t advance”
→ Pakistan builds motorways, but people stop walking 10 minutes. Everyone has
 Google, but no one remembers phone numbers anymore. Society gains convenience, but
loses instinct and strength.
7. “True peace”
→ Not in likes, followers, money, or status. Only in living by your own principles,
unapologetically.

⚡ Bottom Line: Emerson is saying what your Slytherin soul already knows — stop waiting for
permission, stop imitating, and trust your own cunning mix of gifts. Society will always gossip,
bbut greatness is calm independence.

OZYMENDIAS

🔎 Context

 Written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1818.

 “Ozymandias” is the Greek name for the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II, known for his
grand monuments and ego.
 Shelley never saw the actual statue — he based it on reports of a ruined statue of Ramses
being transported to London.

Shelley is using this ancient ruin to flex a big idea: human power, no matter how great,
always crumbles before time.

📜 The Poem (in parts)

1. The Traveler’s Voice

"I met a traveller from an antique land..."

 Notice: it’s a story within a story. The speaker isn’t describing the statue directly —
he’s quoting a traveler.
 This distance adds mystery and authority, like “I heard this from someone who saw it.”
It’s a trick to make it feel universal, timeless.

2. The Ruined Statue

"...Two vast and trunkless legs of stone / Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, / Half sunk,
a shattered visage lies..."

 The statue is broken: legs still standing, but the head (“visage”) lies shattered in the sand.
 Image of decay + destruction: even mighty monuments don’t survive.
 Half sunk = nature and time swallowing human pride.

3. The Sculptor’s Skill

"...whose frown, / And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command..."

 The sculptor captured Ozymandias’s arrogance.

 Even though the king is dust, his personality — pride, cruelty — lives on in stone.
 Irony: the sculptor outlived the king in influence. Art > Power.

4. The Inscription

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; / Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

 Hubris (arrogant pride) in full force.

 He thought his empire was eternal.
 The phrase “King of Kings” echoes Biblical and god-like language, showing he thought
himself untouchable.

5. The Twist (Irony)

"Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare, / The
lone and level sands stretch far away."
  The ultimate punchline: there’s NOTHING left. No empire, no works. Just sand.
 The irony bites: the very words meant to intimidate are now a joke.
 “Colossal Wreck” is genius phrasing — power reduced to rubble.

🧠 Themes & Deep Meaning

1. The Fragility of Power

o Empires fall. Kings fade. Sand wins.
o Time and nature are the true conquerors.
2. Irony & Hubris
o Ozymandias brags about his greatness.
o But the ruins mock him — his works vanished.
o Poem = eternal roast.
3. Art vs. Power
o The king is gone, his empire erased.
o But the sculptor’s work (the expression of arrogance on stone) survives.
o Suggests art can capture truth longer than political power can.
4. Universal Warning
o Not just about one Pharaoh.
o Shelley is warning every ruler, every empire, every “I’m invincible” guy.
o No matter how rich, feared, or powerful → you’ll be dust.

🎭 Why It Still Hits Today

 You can apply it to fallen empires (Rome, British Raj, Soviet Union).
 Or to modern billionaires, politicians, influencers — flexing power that won’t last.
 Even your biggest Instagram empire can vanish (algorithm = sandstorm 🌪).

⚡ The Big Idea in One Line

“Ozymandias” is the ultimate reminder that time humbles all egos, and even the greatest kings
become hashtags of irony in history’s desert.

📝 Literary Techniques in Ozymandias

1. Structure: The Sonnet (but twisted)
  Traditional sonnets (like Shakespeare’s) are about love and beauty.
 Shelley hijacks the sonnet form to talk about ruin, decay, and arrogance → subversion
of expectation.
 It’s a Petrarchan sonnet (14 lines, ABABACDCEDEFEF rhyme scheme). But Shelley
bends the rules → messy rhyme mirrors the “broken” statue. Genius move.

2. Frame Narrative

 The poem is told by a speaker quoting a traveler.

 Distance = universality → not “I saw this,” but “someone told me.”
 Makes Ozymandias feel like a legend, a parable passed down across time.

3. Imagery (Visual Cinema in Words)

 “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone” → massive, yet incomplete. We see absence as
strongly as presence.
 “Half sunk, a shattered visage” → face in sand = image of humiliation.
 “Lone and level sands stretch far away” → wide, endless emptiness mocking human
pride.

4. Irony (the core of the poem)

 Ozymandias says: “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

 But the only despair now is over how empty it all is.
 Double Irony:
o He wanted people to fear his greatness.
o Instead, we laugh at his downfall.

5. Symbolism

 The Statue → human ambition, ego, legacy.

 Broken ruins → fragility of human power.
 The desert → eternity, nature, time swallowing human achievements.
 The sculptor’s skill → truth/art survives when power doesn’t.

6. Enjambment & Flow

Enjambment is a poetic technique where a sentence or phrase continues from one line to the next
without punctuation at the end of the line

 Lines like:
“Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, / Half sunk, a shattered visage lies…”
 No hard stops → thought flows like drifting sand, mirroring the scene.

7. Tone Shifts

 Opening: Curious, neutral (“I met a traveller…”).

 Middle: Harsh, arrogant (Ozymandias’s words).
 End: Calm, inevitable (the sands).
 Shift = fall from pride → silence.

8. Alliteration & Sound Tricks

 “Boundless and bare, / The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
o Alliteration (“boundless, bare” / “lone, level”) → musical emptiness.
o Stretched “s” sounds mimic the whisper of desert winds.

9. Juxtaposition (Contrast)

 The colossal statue vs. the empty desert.

 “Sneer of cold command” vs. lifeless ruins.
 The king’s proud words vs. the reality of nothingness.
 Contrast makes the irony hit harder.

10. Theme as a Meta-Poem

 Even the act of writing this poem is ironic:

o Ozymandias wanted immortality through monuments.
o His empire is gone.
o But Shelley’s poem outlives both the empire and the king.
o → Words beat stone. Poetry beats power.
🎯 Final Scholar-Level Takeaway
Shelley engineered Ozymandias as a poetic monument to irony itself.

 It’s short but layered.

 It weaponizes the sonnet form to warn us:
“Your pride, your power, your empire — all of it will be rubble. Only truth and art
might outlast you.”

🌍 The “Ozymandias Effect” in Modern Times

Big idea: Every age has its “kings of kings.” They rise, flex, dominate… and then collapse into
dust (or memes).

1. Dictators & Politicians

 Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini → built “eternal” empires, cults of personality, massive statues.
Where are they now? Just chapters in history.
 Saddam Hussein had giant statues of himself in Baghdad. Remember when the U.S.
toppled one on live TV (2003)? That was straight out of Ozymandias. One moment:
towering idol. Next moment: rubble and dust.

💡 Shelley’s message: The desert swallows every dictator, no matter how loud their roar.

2. Billionaires & Empires

 Tech giants and CEOs act like modern pharaohs.

 Example: Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos) – called herself the female Steve Jobs, empire
valued at $9 billion. Today? Gone.
 Even Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg — huge right now, but their “works”
(companies, apps, rockets) will someday be outdated.
 Remember MySpace? Nokia? Blackberry? Once mighty, now dust.

💡 Shelley whispers: “Look on your Works, ye Mighty startups, and despair!”

3. Social Media Fame

 Influencers think they’re immortal because of followers, clout, blue ticks.

  But when the platform dies (RIP Vine, Orkut, Friendster), their empire vanishes
overnight.
 Imagine Ozymandias as a TikTok star who thought their dances would rule forever —
now just old videos nobody scrolls to.

💡 Shelley laughs: The algorithm is the new desert.

4. Monuments & Cities

 Cities like Detroit once symbolized American power (cars, industry). Now parts look
like ruins — modern “colossal wrecks.”
 Chernobyl: once a proud Soviet power plant → now a ghost town swallowed by nature.
 Even Dubai skyscrapers or mega-projects in Saudi Arabia (The Line) could someday
be abandoned, sand reclaiming them, exactly like Shelley’s desert.

💡 Nature always wins. Sand > steel.

5. Pop Culture & Entertainment

 Once “untouchable” stars — Michael Jackson, Kanye West, even Disney franchises —
all show that fame crumbles.
 Your “cultural empire” today can be ruins tomorrow.
 Shelley basically predicted cancel culture 😅 → yesterday’s idol, today’s shattered
visage.

🧠 Why This Hits Hard Today

Shelley wasn’t just clowning one Pharaoh. He was laying down a universal formula of
downfall:

1. Power makes people arrogant.

2. They build monuments (literal or metaphorical).
3. Time, history, or the people themselves tear it down.
4. Only irony remains.

The Ozymandias effect is happening every single day — in politics, business, culture, even
Instagram feeds.
🎯 Final Mic Drop
The poem’s modern message could be summed up like this:
“Your empire might be trending now, but someday it’ll just be ruins, screenshots, and
desert memes.”

📜 Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1818)

(with word meanings & explanation)

“I met a traveller from an antique land

 Traveller = someone who has journeyed.

 Antique land = an ancient country (here: Egypt).
👉 The speaker is retelling what a traveler described.

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

 Vast = huge.
 Trunkless = without a body (just legs remain).
👉 The traveler saw two giant legs of a broken statue.

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

 Desert = barren land, symbol of time and emptiness.

👉 The statue is isolated in the middle of nowhere.

Half sunk a shattered visage lies,

 Half sunk = buried halfway in the sand.

 Shattered visage = broken face of the statue.
👉 The statue’s head lies nearby, ruined.
whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

 Frown = angry look.

 Sneer = mocking, arrogant expression.
 Cold command = harsh authority.
👉 The sculptor captured the king’s arrogance.

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

 Passions = strong feelings, like pride and arrogance.

 Well… read = understood deeply.
👉 The sculptor accurately carved Ozymandias’s proud, cruel personality.

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

 Yet survive = still remain.

 Stamped = impressed, carved into stone.
 Lifeless things = broken stone statue.
👉 The king is gone, but his arrogance survives in the stone.

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

 Mocked here = “copied” (old meaning, not just “made fun of”).
 Fed = fueled (the heart that gave rise to the arrogance).
👉 The sculptor’s hand copied the king’s arrogance, which came from his heart.

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

 Pedestal = base of the statue.

👉 An inscription is carved on the statue.

‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!’

 Ozymandias = Greek name for Pharaoh Ramses II.

  King of Kings = supreme ruler, above all others.
 Ye Mighty = you powerful people.
 Despair = lose hope in comparison.
👉 Ozymandias brags: “I’m the greatest ruler. Fear me.”

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

 Nothing beside remains = nothing else is left.

 Decay = ruins, crumbling remains.
👉 Despite his brag, nothing of his empire survives.

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

 Colossal = huge, gigantic.

 Wreck = ruined statue.
 Boundless and bare = endless emptiness.
👉 The statue is just a massive ruin surrounded by emptiness.

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

 Lone = solitary, empty.

 Level sands = flat desert.
👉 The desert stretches endlessly, swallowing the statue.

🎯 Core Message (Simplified)

 Ozymandias was once a great king who built massive monuments to show off his power.
 Today, nothing remains except broken ruins in the desert.
 Time has erased his works, leaving only irony: his proud words are now a joke.