Quotes on self discovery
We catch frightful glimpses of ourselves in the hostile eyes of others.
McLaughlin, Mignon
If you haven't had at least a slight poetic crack in the heart, you have been cheated by nature.
Battelle, Phyllis
Becoming conscious is of course a sacrilege against nature; it is as though you had robbed the unconscious of something.
Jung, Carl G.
Like an old gold-panning prospector, you must resign yourself to digging up a lot of sand from which you will later patiently wash out a few minute particles of gold ore.
Bryant, Dorothy
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Thoreau, Henry David
Learning how to operate a soul figures to take time.
Leary, Timothy
The greatest explorer on this earth never takes voyages as long as those of the man who descends to the depth of his heart.
Green, Julien
Readjusting is a painful process, but most of us need it at one time or another.
Benson, Arthur Christopher
There is deep wisdom within our very flesh, if we can only come to our senses and feel it.
Behnke, Elizabeth A.
Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.
Watts, Alan
When your heart speaks, take good notes.
Campbell, Judith
I recommend to every one of my readers, the keeping a journal of their lives for one week, and setting down punctually their whole series of employments during that space of time. This kind of self-examination would give them a true state of themselves, and incline them to consider seriously what they are about. One day would rectify the omissions of another, and make a man weigh all those indifferent actions, which, though they are easily forgotten, must certainly be accounted for.
Addison, Joseph
It's a great thing when you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself. Makes you wonder what else you can do that you've forgotten about.
Ball, Alan
They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.
Confucius
For souls in growth, great quarrels are great emancipators.
Smith, Logan Pearsall
In order to judge properly, one must get away somewhat from what one is judging, after having loved it. This is true of countries, of persons, and of oneself.
Gide, André
When you re-read a classic you do not see in the book more than you did before. You see more in you than there was before.
Fadiman, Clifton
Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about point B that so many people from point A are so keen to get there. They often wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to be.
Adams, Douglas
Never be afraid to sit awhile and think.
Hansberry, Lorraine
It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts.
Jong, K.T.
The man who views the world at fifty the same as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.
Muhammed Ali
I met a lot of people in Europe. I even encountered myself.
Baldwin, James
We run away all the time to avoid coming face to face with ourselves.
Unknown, Author
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.
Adams, Douglas
You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.
Alda, Alan
Man never knows what he wants; he aspires to penetrate mysteries and as soon as he has, he wants to reestablish them. Ignorance irritates him and knowledge cloys.
Amiel, Henri
Truth hurts - not the searching after; the running from!
Eyberg, John
You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.
Froude, James A.
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer.
Rilke, Rainer Maria