32 Best Eat, Pray, Love Quotes For Self Discovery

Eat, Pray, Love is a bestselling novel by Elizabeth Gilbert that chronicles her journey around the world as she seeks balance and healing in her life.

This New York Times bestselling book remained at the top of the list for over 180 weeks.

The movie rights for the memoir were eventually purchased by Columbia Pictures and transformed to an amazing movie starring Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem in 2010. 

In today’s post, we will explore some of the best ‘Eat, Pray Love’ quotes that have helped many people find balance and healing.

Eat, Pray, Love quotes for self discovery

“You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“If you’re bravo enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting, which can be anything from your house to bitter old resentments, and set out on a truth-seeking journey, either externally or internally, and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher and if you are prepared, most of all, to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself, then the truth will not be withheld from you.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“As smoking is to the lungs, so is resentment to the soul; even one puff of it is bad for you.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“I’m here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay with you. If you need the medication again, go ahead and take it—I will love you through that, as well. If you don’t need the medication, I will love you, too. There’s nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“We search for happiness everywhere, but we are like Tolstoy’s fabled beggar who spent his life sitting on a pot of gold, under him the whole time. Your treasure–your perfection–is within you already. But to claim it, you must leave the buy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“Some days are meant to be counted, others are meant to be weighed.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“You’re wishin’ too much, baby. You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“I am a better person when I have less on my plate.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“There is a reason they call God a presence – because God is right here, right now. In the present is the only place to find Him, and now is the only time.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“I wondered, “Why have I been chasing happiness my whole life when bliss was here the entire time?” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“Destiny, I feel, is also a relationship – a play between divine grace and willful self-effort.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“That’s the thing about a human life-there’s no control group, no way to ever know how any of us would have turned out if any variables had been changed.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“To find the balance you want, this is what you must become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that it’s like you have 4 legs instead of 2. That way, you can stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart, instead. That way, you will know God.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“At some point, you gotta let go, and sit still, and allow contentment to come to you.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“To travel is worth any cost or sacrifice.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“Instructions for freedom”:

1. Life’s metaphors are God’s instructions.

2. You have just climbed up and above the roof, there is nothing between you and the Infinite; now, let go.

3. The day is ending, it’s time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. Now, let go.

4. Your wish for resolution was a prayer. You are being here is God’s response, let go and watch the stars came out, in the inside and in the outside.

5. With all your heart ask for Grace and let go.

6. With all your heart forgive him, forgive yourself and let him go.

7. Let your intention be freedom from useless suffering then, let go.

8. Watch the heat of day pass into the cold night, let go.

9. When the Karma of a relationship is done, only Love remains. It’s safe, let go.

10. When the past has past from you at last, let go.. then, climb down and begin the rest of your life with great joy.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

If you’re enjoying these Eat, pray, love quotes, then be sure to check out our  Untethered Soul quotes for more self discovery and spiritual awakening. 

“Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“I think I deserve something beautiful.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible. Pleasure cannot be bargained down. And sometimes the meal is the only currency that is real.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“So now I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“Dear Lord, please show me everything I need to understand about forgiveness and surrender” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“Let your conscience be your guide.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“But if you can plant yourself in stillness long enough, you will, in time, experience the truth that everything (both uncomfortable and lovely) does eventually pass.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“Zen masters say you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“Still, despite all this, traveling is the great true love of my life. I have always felt, ever since I was sixteen years old and first went to Russia with my saved-up babysitting money, that to travel is worth any cost or sacrifice. I am loyal and constant in my love for travel, as I have not always been loyal and constant in my other loves. I feel about travel the way a happy new mother feels about her impossible, colicky, restless, newborn baby–I just don’t care what it puts me through. Because I adore it. Because it’s mine. Because it looks exactly like me. It can barf all over me if it wants to–I just don’t care.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“Learning how to discipline your speech is a way of preventing your energies from spilling out of you through the rupture of your mouth, exhausting you and filling the world with words, words, words instead of serenity, peace and bliss.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. ‘How much do you love me?’ And, ‘Who’s in charge?’ Everything else is somehow manageable. But these two questions of love and control undo us all, trip us up and cause war, grief, and suffering.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“The day is ending. It’s time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. Now, Let go.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

We highly recommend going to pick up the book, Eat, Pray, Love here if you have not read it yet.

Let us know which Eat, Pray, Love quotes were your favorites in the comments below!