Ralph Waldo Emerson was a minister who left the pulpit to follow his own inner light. From his home in Concord, Massachusetts, he became the voice of American Transcendentalism and inspired Thoreau, Whitman and the whole New Thought movement.
His essays Self-Reliance and The Over-Soul taught a nation to trust the Divine within.
In Their Words
“Within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE.”
The Over-Soul, 1841
“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
Self-Reliance, 1841
What This Sage Teaches Us
Emerson teaches that the same Great Spirit that moves the stars speaks in your own heart. Trust it. Do not live by borrowed beliefs. Walk in nature, listen within, and let the Over-Soul speak through you.
Reflect: What is your own heart telling you that you have not yet trusted?





