Some quotes to ponder:

"To believe your own thought, to believe what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men-- that is genius."

"The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

"A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

When you think about it, life all comes down to one thing: you. The only part of the world you can control is yourself, the one aspect of life with which you are most knowledgable. To believe in the power of the individual is to realize the potential of man; to act upon such beliefs is to fulfill that potential. Society is an artwork of pointillism, comprised of individual dots with their own character that define the whole. If each individual were to take responsibility for his own life and trust that others would do the same, only then would man triumph.