Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

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.

Seek always for the answer within. Be not influenced by those around you, by their thoughts or their words.

We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.

Before you can follow your own drummer, you have to hear the drummer.

We can find Nature outside us only if we have first learned to know her within us. What is akin to her within us must be our guide. This marks out our path of enquiry.

I'm not a guy who looks for signs in the universe to tell him things. I believe that if you search hard enough for the answer you already know, you will find it.

It's okay to ask questions, but get the answers. So, where are the answers? Since the questions came from within you, guess where the answers are? Within you.

We listen for guidance everywhere except from within.

Why do you want to read others' books when there is the book of yourself?

We gotta be willing to seek direction ... we've gotta be willing to look within.

Sometimes we do not hear the Whisperer even at her loudest because she speaks in our own voice, the one we most often discount.

You have no need to travel anywhere - journey within yourself. Enter a mine of rubies and bathe in the splendor of your own light.

Because the truth is, nobody knows what's best for you better than you do. You have to really sit still and ask yourself: What do I want? Does this feel right? What should I do? I realized I had to go back and do what I had always done. Listening to my gut was just as important as listening to the advice of others, and only I knew what was best for me.

He whose book of the heart has been opened needs no other books.

I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.

We don't need someone to show us the ropes. We are the ones we've been waiting for. Deep inside us we know the feelings we need to guide us. Our task is to learn to trust our inner knowing.

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.

Knowing yourself has to always come from within. The outside can inspire or guide you, but knowing has to come from within you.

If I'd trusted myself and listened to myself all the times that I ignored myself, I would have been fine. But everyone has to learn their lesson, and now I've got it.

I knew I had a lot to say. Not politically - politics have always confused me - but perhaps spiritually.

No one can give you better advice than yourself.

Sometimes I was so busy being tuned in to outside ideas, expectations, and demands, I failed to hear the unique music in my soul. I forfeited my ability to listen creatively to my deepest self, to my own God within.

I try not to listen to the shoulds or coulds, and try to get beyond expectations, peer pressure, or trying to please - and just listen. I believe all the answers are ultimately within us.

I don't want people following Jon Kabat-Zinn. I want them following themselves.

I tell my son Corey that the greatest teacher is the teacher who says, 'Don't follow me; follow yourself. Because within you there is that kingdom, that life, that force.'