evidence: FACT CHECK: Did Ralph Waldo Emerson Say This Quote About ‘What Lies Within Us’? A post shared on Facebook credits New England writer Ralph Waldo Emerson with saying, "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." [...] This quote has been regularly attributed to Emerson, an essayist and poet prominent during the transcendentalist movement of the 19th century. (RELATED: Did Ralph Waldo Emerson Say This Quote About Trailblazing?)