The second section of "Self-Reliance" offers more suggestions for the individual who wants to achieve the desirable quality of self-reliance. Emerson begins with a directive: "Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet." Material objects, especially those that are imposing — Emerson cites magnificent buildings and heroic works of art, including costly books — often intimidate people by making them feel of lesser worth. This feeling of inferiority is a mistake: Humans determine an object's worth, not vice versa. Emerson illustrates this point by relating a fable of a drunkard who is brought in off the street and treated like a royal personage; the unthinking individual is like the drunkard, living only half awake, until he comes to his senses by exercising reason and discovers that he is actually a prince.
One cause for our not exercising reason is the uncritical manner in which we read. Complaining that we often enjoy reading about the exploits of famous people while ignoring or devaluing books about ordinary righteousness and virtue, Emerson asks why people view the acts of well-known individuals as more important than the behavior of ordinary citizens, even though the good or bad behavior of ordinary people can have effects as noble or as dire as the actions of the powerful. Condemning European monarchies, he considers why royalty is accorded exaggerated respect despite the equal importance of common people; he can reason only that ordinary people respect royalty in recognition that a king or a queen represents the "royal" nature of every person, an argument he rejects outright.
