Echoes

Your whole duty as a writer is to please and satisfy yourself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one. Start sniffing the air, or glancing at the Trend Machine, and you are as good as dead, although you may make a nice living.

It is himself he is approaching, no other; and he should begin by turning resolutely away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style — all mannerisms, tricks, adornments.

The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all, it is for you to dare all.

He who cannot find himself the retreat of his own soul, let him appeal to solitude — if he can even bear himself.

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Without, everything seems discordant; only within does it coalesce into unity. Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakes.

I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics; that is my physics.

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Do not follow in the footsteps of the old masters, but seek what they sought — and find it in the mountains, the rivers, and the open sky.

The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness.

And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself?

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

Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.

Though the whole world should praise him, he would not be stimulated to greater endeavour, and though the whole world should condemn him, he would not be depressed. So fixed was he in the difference between the internal judgement of himself and the external judgement of others.

The best of artists has no conception that a single block of marble does not contain within itself, beneath its surface; only the hand that obeys the intellect can reach it.

Cherish that which is within you, and shut off that which is without; for much knowledge is a curse.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Never did I think so much, never did I realize my own existence so much, never was I so much alive, so much myself, as in those journeys which I made alone and on foot.

Inspiration is a guest that does not always answer the first invitation. Meanwhile we must work, and a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If we wait for the mood, without endeavouring to meet it halfway, we easily become indolent and apathetic. We must be patient, and believe that inspiration will come to those who can master their despondency.

Be a lamp unto yourself, be a refuge to yourself. Take yourself to no external refuge. Hold fast to the Truth as a lamp; hold fast to the Truth as a refuge.

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

What does your conscience say? — You should become who you are.