- All's Well That Ends Well
- Antony and Cleopatra
- As You Like It
- The Comedy of Errors
- Coriolanus
- Cymbeline
- Hamlet
- Henry IV, Part 1
- Henry IV, Part 2
- Henry V
- Henry VI, Part 1
- Henry VI, Part 2
- Henry VI, Part 3
- Henry VIII
- Julius Caesar
- King John
- King Lear
- Love's Labor's Lost
- A Lover's Complaint
- Macbeth
- Measure for Measure
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Othello
- Pericles
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Richard II
- Richard III
- Romeo and Juliet
- Shakespeare's Sonnets
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- Venus and Adonis
- The Winter's Tale
Emerson’s belief in the need for reform in American society is made clear by the numbered list of the applications of self-reliance to institutions in which this quote appears. Nevertheless, his desire for reform should not be confused with the Enlightenment belief that society was on an inevitable march of progress. Emerson’s belief that “[s]ociety never advances” is rooted in his rejection of what normally counts as “progress” according to the Enlightenment perspective. From Emerson’s perspective, the usual signs of progress, like technological advancements, have a negative impact on the individual’s access to intuition, as well as to spaces and…