Self Knowledge Quotes - Page 3

An artist has got to get acquainted with himself just as much as he can. It is no easy job, for it is not a present-day habit of humanity.

If the sound of happy children is grating on your ears, I don't think it's the children who need to be adjusted.

The earlier you know who you are, the more effective and successful a life you will be able to live

Compassion without discipline is egregious self-sabotage.

To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.

Time spent in assessing one's self, is the time spent best.

[I]t doesn’t matter whom you love or where you move from or to, you always take yourself with you. If you don’t know who you are, or if you’ve forgotten or misplaced her, then you’ll always feel as if you don’t belong. Anywhere. (xiii)

A man who's discontents were barely known to himself, awakening in middle age to the horror of self-reflection.

To know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks.

Dismantle your wounds so you stop living your life by them.

Self-improvement without self-love is like building a house upon sand. You can build and build, but it will always sink.

One of the best ways of repressing emotions is artificial certainty.

A restless human heart always seeks to increase personal understanding and works to attain excellence.

Reading and writing are solitary activities that increase a person’s capacity for concentration, awareness, and conceptual thought as the person weaves immediate information with stored memories.

You are sure you mean bliss?''Yes, an island or some place where we could all live or go to easily whenever we pleased and do all the things we wish to do without thought of the narrow-mindedness of others.''You are asking too much. Oh, for the Isle of Crete! You are wishing a return to the good old Pagan times when all honor was paid even to prostitutes.''No, not asking too much, just asking for a natural morality, a thing which varies with each bird, beast, and human and for which due allowance is not made in lawmaking.

What is the nature of the Self (Soul)? To ‘see’ the dharma (function) of everything, to see ‘who is performing what function, and how that function is being performed.’ To ‘see’ it, is called the function of the Self (Soul).

Much of the work of midlife is to tell the difference between those who are dealing with their issues through you and those who are really dealing with you.

Men forget where the way leads and what they meet with every day seems strange to them.We should not act and speak like men asleep.

The essence of the charge made against the modern high-status ideal is that it is guilty of effecting a gigantic distortion of priorities, of elevating to the highest level of achievement a process of material accumulation that should instead be only one of many factors determining the direction of our lives under a more truthful, more broadly defined conception of ourselves.

...you find your genius by looking in the mirror of your life. Your visible image shows your inner truth, so when you're estimating others, what you see is what you get. It therefore becomes critically important to see generously, or you will get only what you see; to see sharply, so that you discern the mix of traits rather than a generalized lump; and to see deeply into dark shadows, or else you will be deceived.

The only person who can pull me down is myself, and I'm not going to let myself pull me down anymore.

To succeed and reach your life goals, you must know who you are

You only grow when you are alone.

Spend your leisure time in cultivating an ear attentive to discourse, for in this way you will find that you learn with ease what others have found out with difficulty.

My simple explanation of why we human beings, the most advanced species on earth, cannot find happiness, is this: as we evolve up the ladder of being, we find three things: the first, that the tension between the range of opposites in our lives and society widens dramatically and often painfully as we evolve; the second, that the better informed and more intelligent we are, the more humble we have to become about our ability to live meaningful lives and to change anything, even ourselves; and consequently, thirdly, that the cost of gaining the simplicity the other side of complexity can rise very steeply if we do not align ourselves and our lives well.

It's okay for someone to tell me who they think I am, but it's not okay when they try to impose that idea on me.

We may not yet know the right way to go, but we should at least stop going in the wrong direction.

The only part of you that hurts when you're given the truth is the part that lives on lies.

Recognizing who you are is not the subtext of a life. It's the main point.

A person can only see their shadow if they awaken their eclectic soul. Self-understanding commences by admitting to the shadowy presence of the primordial unconsciousness. The unconscious mind is a magical concoction of logical and irrational thoughts and feelings.

Enlightenment – whether defined as spiritual awakening, liberation, or other form of illumination and attentiveness – requires inner transformation brokered by study of our limitations and application of a welcoming spirit of conscious appreciation. Self-knowledge commences by looking for the sacred light of awareness essential to spawn profound change in a person’s character.

Consciousness cannot be glimpsed as though it were something outside yourself, because it is you.

The one who says he doesn't understand anything about art, doesn't know himself.

Some days I tell myself that my mission is to say something about the art and sometimes the bliss of limitation. And the legibility of landscape. Other days are more dismal. As if I were queueing in the rain outside confessional literature’s nudist colony, mirrors everywhere, blue with cold.

I always have my reasons, even when I don't know what they are.

Knowledge of what you love somehow comes to you; you don’t have to read nor analyze nor study. If you love a thing enough, knowledge of it seeps into you, with particulars more real than any chart can furnish.

With or without our knowledge, we are all alchemists.

What we do not confront, we inhabit.What we do not reject, we accept.What we do not fight, we become.

Those who read books cannot understand the teachings and, what's more, may even go astray. But those who try to observe the things going on in the mind, and always take that which is true in their own minds as their standard, never get muddled. They are able to comprehend suffering, and ultimately will understand Dharma. Then, they will understand the books they read.

Low states are a like a poison to the psyche. Millions of people throughout the world take tranquillizers each day to combat depression, but this does not tackle its root cause, which is found in the basic state of the internal energies of the psyche.Basically the energy of the psyche needs to change, from low states to spiritual ones. It requires inner observation, the destruction of the egos, and alchemical transformation.

Perfection itself is not the ultimate goalbut the ultimate condition of life.

What we are at this very moment, is determined by the sum total of all our experiences till this moment.

All forms of writing are an act of conception; writing must lead to creation. Each time that we write, we begin again. Writing is an act of self-affirmation. Each time that we place our thoughts onto paper, we receive a new opportunity to claim our reality. Writing is also an act of explication and deconstruction. Writing empowers us to shape and modify our fiery constitutions. Writing allows us to explore the essential ingredients that lead to a life of serenity by exhibiting compassion, love, patience, generosity, and forgiveness.

Be able to define yourself at all times. Do not wait for someone else to come and define you. Accept and embrace your individuality. Be inspired to be the BEST YOU and never let no one get your self esteem down.

Self-knowledge is power.

To understand yourself: Is that a discovery or a creation?

Only when we face the impossible, and experience the unbearable, do we find out who we truly are.

At thirty a man suspects himself a fool;Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;At fifty chides his infamous delay,Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;In all the magnanimity of thoughtResolves; and re-resolves; then dies the same.

Deep down within the heart there is a stillness which is healing, a trust in the universal laws which is unwavering, and a strength which is rock-like. But because it is so deep we need both patience and perseverance when digging for it.

...[T]he whole undertaking of philosophical inquiry requires a prior understanding of the conceptual system in which the undertaking is set. That is an empirical job for cognitive science and cognitive semantics. ... Unless this job is done, we will not know whether the answers philosophers give to their questions are a function of the conceptualization built into the questions themselves.

The interdependent couple is the new setting and their knowledge of Self is an ancient treasure."-Serena Jade

Obviously, a rigid, blinkered, absolutist world view is the easiest to keep hold of, whereas the fluid, uncertain, metamorphic picture I've always carried about is rather more vulnerable. Yet I must cling with all my might to … my own soul; must hold on to its mischievous, iconoclastic, out-of-step clown-instincts, no matter how great the storm. And if that plunges me into contradiction and paradox, so be it; I've lived in that messy ocean all my life. I've fished in it for my art. This turbulent sea was the sea outside my bedroom window in Bombay. It is the sea by which I was born, and which I carry within me wherever I go.

Writing is an exemplary means to make contact with the whole of the self. What ultimately makes up the self is a collation of personal knowledge derived from physical, mental, and emotional experiences. The only way to divine the self is to understand what comprises its constituent components. The self is what we do, think, and act. Writing is not merely a documenter of the actions of the self. Writing, similar to other artistic activities, is one of the fundamental activities that a self can perform.

To know oneself and one’s end or goal in life is true wisdom—knowledge of the heart more than the head.

The greatest of empires, is the empire over one's self.

He has to come to it on his own.

Experience teaches effectually, but brutally. It makes us acquainted with all the effects of an action, by causing us to feel them; and we cannot fail to finish by knowing that fire burns, if we have burned ourselves. For this rough teacher, I should like, if possible, to substitute a more gentle one. I mean Foresight. For this purpose I shall examine the consequences of certain economical phenomena, by placing in opposition to each other those which are seen, and those which are not seen.

Commandment #1: Believe in yourself. Commandment #2: Get over yourself.

We discover part of our true self only by conspicuous inspection of the depths of our conscience.

In the perspective of our species, life has favored humanity as a whole by promoting as much wealth of variety and options as possible, and has distributed everything using the four winds. Life has given mankind everything it has, without segregation and without consideration of which characteristic or quality best suits the situations or the periods. Only by having the totality of human characteristics and options can we hope to deal with all periods to come.Our collective is our key to survival and well-being.