The Sentence in Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self-reliance, which I could not understand. Hello, everyone. I've been reading Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote. In the middle of the book, there is a sentence that reads "Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim. This one fact the world hates, that the soul becomes; for that forever degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to shame, confounds the saint with the rogue, shoves Jesus and Judas equally aside. Why, then, do we prate of self-reliance? Inasmuch as the soul is present, there will be power not confident but agent." Before the sentence, the book says we should trust ourselves, not conform to society. But why does the book say: "... there will be power not confident but agent"? I understood the sentence like this: "the power steming from the present soul makes us acting, not bragging." Do you think it is reasonable?