Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages

You have within yourself the answer to every question you propose - if you only knew how to look for it. In the Land of the spirit, you cannot walk by the light of someone else's lamp. You want to borrow mine. I'd rather teach you how to make your own.

Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man. All men come into this world alone and leave it alone.

There's only one person who knows me - and that's me.

Any man who is really a man must learn to be alone in the midst of others, to think alone for others, and, if necessary, against others.

The New England spirit does not seek solutions in a crowd; raw light and solitariness are less dreaded than welcomed as enhancers of our essential selves.

I see all of us reading ourselves away from ourselves, straining in circles of light to find more light until the line of words becomes a trail of crumbs that we follow across a page of fresh snow.

Those who have finished by making all others think with them, have usually been those who began by daring to think with themselves.

Inner Nature, when relied on, cannot be fooled. But many people do not look at it or listen to it, and consequently do not understand themselves very much. Having little understanding of themselves, they have little respect for themselves, and are therefore easily influenced by others.

It is impossible to pursue a successful literary career and follow the advice of all one's 'best friends'.I feel compelled to follow the light which my own intellect & judgement cast upon my way, rather than any one of the many conflicting rays which other minds would lend me.

This is...self-knowled ge-for a man to know what he knows, and what he does not know.

Learn the backward step that turns your light inward to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest.

The intellectual attainments of a man who thinks for himself resemble a fine painting, where the light and shade are correct, the tone sustained, the colour perfectly hamonized; it is true to life.

Of no agenor of any religion, or party or profession. The body and substance of his works came out of the unfathomable depths of his own oceanic mind.

It always stimulates me to discover new examples of my own prejudice and stupidity, to realize that I don't know half as much as I think I do.

I like to get dark sometimes and then come back out into the light.

Then, though I prize my friends, I cannot afford to talk with them and study their visions, lest I lose my own. It would indeed give me a certain household joy to quit this lofty seeking, this spiritual astronomy, or search of stars, and come down to warm sympathies with you; but then I know well I shall mourn always the vanishing of my mighty gods.

Ranger removed my goggles "Would you like to come home with me?" I stepped away from him. "Thank you for the offer, but no. I'm done with men." Ranger smiled. "Forever?" "Until I figure some things out." "And if you don't figure them out?" "If I can't figure them out on my own, I'll ask you to help me." "Babe, that's like the blind leading the blind.

If I could know me, I could know the universe.

To live exuberantly, we must be prepared to illuminate the dark spots in ourselves.

I swim in a shaft of light, upside down, and I can see myself clearly, through and through, from every angle. Perhaps I stand on the brink of a great discovery.

Religion is only the illusory sun which revolves round man as long as he does not revolve round himself.

No one can advise and help you, no one. There is only one way: go within.

For what is a man, what has he got. If not himself, then he has naught.

The more you know yourself, the more clarity there is. Self-knowledge has no end - you don't come to an achievement, you don't come to a conclusion. It is an endless river.