Introspection Quotes

Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.

~ George Eliot

The most introspective of souls are often those that have been hurt the most.

~ Shannon L. Alder

A man must find time for himself. Time is what we spend our lives with. If we are not careful we find others spending it for us. . . . It is necessary now and then for a man to go away by himself and experience loneliness; to sit on a rock in the forest and to ask of himself, 'Who am I, and where have I been, and where am I going?' . . . If one is not careful, one allows diversions to take up one's time—the stuff of life.

~ Carl Sandburg

When you see a good person, think of becoming like her/him. When you see someone not so good, reflect on your own weak points.

~ Confucius

I do feel that I’ve managed to make something I could maybe call my world…over time…little by little. And when I’m inside it, to some extent, I feel kind of relieved. But the very fact I felt I had to make such a world probably means that I’m a weak person, that I bruise easily, don’t you think? And in the eyes of society at large, that world of mine is a puny little thing. It’s like a cardboard house: a puff of wind might carry it off somewhere.

~ Haruki Murakami

The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour.

~ Ray Bradbury

Nothing is more visible than things hidden; Nothing is more manifest than things minute; Therefore, the superior man should be aware of his aloneness

~ Confucius

The act of going within, finding our truth, and then sharing it, it helps us far more than we know.

~ Kamal Ravikant

Don't call anyone a devil, because within you, you can experience hell and the devil, and the devil is nothing, but you!

~ Michael Bassey Johnson

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

~ Aristotle

They were quiet for a while, eating, then Oromis asked, Can you tell me, What is the most important mental tool a person can possess?It was a serious question, and Eragon considered it for a reasonable span before he ventured to say, Determination.Oromis tore the loaf in half with his long white fingers. I can understand why you arrived at that conclusion-determination has served you well in your adventures-but no. I meant the tool most necessary to choose the best course of action in any given situation. Determination is as common among men who are dull and foolish as it is among those who are brilliant intellects. So, no, determination cannot be what we're looking for.

~ Christopher Paolini

Find the light within you through meditation and introspection, and you will illuminate your life from within.

~ Amy Leigh Mercree

that's exactly the good thing about the Injun life--you don't have to stop and think about whether or not you're 'happy'--which in my opinionis a highly overrated human condition invented by white folks

~ Jim Fergus

But what if hope had a threshold? What if there was a limit to it? What if each of us was only given a certain amount and mine was used up?

~ Jennifer Niven

Across the centuries the moral systems from medival chivalry to Bruce Springsteen love anthems have worked the same basic way. They take immediate selfish interests and enmesh them within transcendent, spiritual meanings. Love becomes a holy cause, an act of self-sacrifice and selfless commitment.But texting and the utilitarian mind-set are naturally corrosive toward poetry and imagination. A coat of ironic detachment is required for anyone who hopes to withstand the brutal feedback of the marketplace. In today's world, the choice of a Prius can be a more sanctified act than the choice of an erotic partner.This does not mean that young people today are worse or shallower than young people in the past. It does mean they get less help. People once lived within a pattern of being, which educated the emotions, guided the temporary toward the permanent and linked everyday urges to higher things. The accumulated wisdom of the community steered couples as they tried to earn each other's commitment.Today there are fewer norms that guide that way. Today's technology seems to threaten the sort of recurring and stable reciprocity that is the building block of trust.

~ David Brooks

How they are all about, these gentlemenIn chamberlains' apparel, stocked and laced,Like night around their order's star and gemAnd growing ever darker, stony-faced,And these, their ladies, fragile, wan, but proppedHigh by their bodice, one hand loosely dropped,Small like its collar, on the toy King-Charles:How they surround each one of these who stoppedTo read and contemplate the objects d'art,Of which some pieces still are theirs, not ours.Whit exquisite decorum they allow usA life of whose dimensions we seem sureAnd which they cannot grasp. They were aliveTo bloom, that is be fair; we, to mature,That is to be of darkness and to strive.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

If the whole universe can be found in our own body and mind, this is where we need to make our inquires. We all have the answers within ourselves, we just have not got in touch with them yet. The potential of finding the truth within requires faith in ourselves.

~ Ayya Khema

Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.

~ Franz Kafka

I stand in the mist and cry, thinking of myself standing in the mist and crying, and wondering if I will ever be able to use this experience in a book.

~ Erica Jong

When you are in action it is very difficult to get a bird’s eye view of your own performance! Find some time to introspect.

~ Harrish Sairaman

Know thyself, presume not God to scan;The proper study of mankind is man.

~ Alexander Pope

By thinking of things you could understand them.

~ James Joyce

If the surprise outcome of the recent UK referendum - on whether to leave or remain in the European Union - teaches us anything, it is that supposedly worthy displays of democracy in action can actually do more harm than good. Witness a nation now more divided; an intergenerational schism in the making; both a governing and opposition party torn to shreds from the inside; infinitely more complex issues raised than satisfactory solutions provided. It begs the question 'Was it really all worth it' ?

~ Alex Morritt

Just friends, just friends. Standing there in the bookstore, watching Seth walk away, I half wondered how anyone could still use that line. But I knew why, of course. It was used because people still believed it. Or at least they wanted to.

~ Richelle Mead

If you lack open communication and honesty in your life – It’s time to look within. Are you someone who handles heavy, emotional, or tough information well or do you often get excessively agitated, upset, or depressed? My rule of thumb is that no topic ‘should’ ever be off limits with a loved one. That is the goal to work towards. The point being, if you’re easy to talk to, people will talk to you! If you’re not, then they won’t!

~ Alaric Hutchinson

Sometimes being overwhelmed by emotions can leave you speechless but even then it is important to identify the correct emotion.

~ Sam Owen

Jealousy is when their reflection in the mirror that is your progress, is attacked rather than appreciated, begrudged rather than understood.

~ Sam Owen

Introspection and observation of others are vital for the ongoing good health of our own psyche; watch, learn and tweak as required.

~ Sam Owen

Everyone in this world is Abhimanyu, the difference being that most of us are trapped in a labyrinth of our own creation. It takes a lifetime for people to realise that the way out lies in their own hands. All it requires is a little introspection.

~ Anurag Shourie

In life, we must choose to quiet ourselves and go through a period of reflection, an instance in time for evaluating our strengths vs. our weaknesses, an interval in time for recognizing the real from deceit, a moment in time for making necessary life adjustments for personal welfare. It's through such, we begin to know ourselves.

~ D. Allen Miller

We learn about life by exploring the texture and depth of space that composes our private inner world. In solitude we revisit our wounded feelings, sins, doubts, and deepest despair, replay poignant memories of loved ones, project what we are becoming, and ascertain the purpose of our being.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

The past and the present are after all so close, so almost one, as if time were an artificial teasing out of a material which longs to join, to interpenetrate, and to become heavy and very small like some of those heavenly bodies scientists tell us of.

~ Iris Murdoch

What is reading but silent conversation.

~ Walter Savage Landor

Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes.

~ Edward Gibbon

Novels are food for the leftover hours of life, the in-between times, the moments of waiting.

~ Young-Ha Kim

Everything in modern city life is calculated to keep man from entering into himself and thinking about spiritual things. Even with the best of intentions a spiritual man finds himself exhausted and deadened and debased by the constant noise of machines and loudspeakers, the dead air and the glaring lights of offices and shops, the everlasting suggestion of advertising and propaganda.The whole mechanism of modern life is geared for a flight from God and from the spirit into the wilderness of neurosis.

~ Thomas Merton

Talking with Elaine like that, with no judgment from her or anything, seemed to bring my feelings more to the surface so I could look at them. I love times like that; you don't get many of them.(Walker, in STOTAN!)

~ Chris Crutcher

So young and so lethargic! As though he had been born to sit and stare like this. Ever since Kiyoaki had confided in him, Shigekuni, who would have been bright and confident, as befitted such an able young man, had undergone a change. Or rather, the friendship between him and Kiyoaki had undergone a strange reversal. For years, each of them had been extremely careful to intrude in no way on the personal life of the other. But now, just three days before, Kiyoaki had suddenly come to him and, like a newly cured patient transmitting his disease to someone else, had passed on to his friend the virus of introspection. It had taken hold so readily that Honda's disposition now seemed a far better host to it than Kiyoaki's. The first major symptom of the disease was a vague sense of apprehension.

~ Yukio Mishima

A good roast of sun, it slows you, lets you relax–and out here if there's anything wrong, you can see it coming with bags of time to do what's next. This is the place and the weather for peace, for the cultivation of a friendly mind.

~ A.l. Kennedy

Let him who thinks war is a glorious, golden thing, who loves to roll forth stirring words of exhortation, invoking honour and praise and valour and love of country … Let him but look at a little pile of sodden grey rags that cover half a skull and a shin-bone and what might have been its ribs, or at this skeleton lying on its side, resting half crouching as it fell, perfect that it is headless, and with the tattered clothing still draped round it; and let him realize how grand and glorious a thing it is to have distilled all youth and joy and life into a fetid heap of hideous putrescence! Who is there who has known and seen who can say that victory is worth the death of even one of these?

~ Wade Davis

Introspection quote from classy quote