Quotes About Self-discovery

part of trying to attract those poet-men was to look a little like I had wandered onto campus by accident after having spent ten years with the wolves behind some farmhouse, living off scraps and reveling in the pure air like a half–girl Mowgli, half–woman Thoreau.

You are your own teacher. Looking for teachers can't solve your own doubts. Investigate yourself to find the truth - inside, not outside. Knowing yourself is most important.

Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself.

It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not; the domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, who may not be who we essentially are.

Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go.

Our jobs make relentless calls on a narrow band of our faculties, reducing our chances of achieving rounded personalities and leaving us to suspect (often in the gathering darkness of a Sunday evening) that much of who we are, or could be, has gone unexplored.

Growth occurs when we discover how to remain authentically ourselves in the presence of potentially threatening things. Maturity is the possession of coping skills: we can take in our stride things that previously would have knocked us off course. We are less fragile, less easily shocked and hence more capable of engaging with situations as they really are

It isn't normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement.

A momentous but until then overlooked fact was making itself apparent: I had inadvertently brought myself with me to the island. It

We cannot be taught wisdom, we have to discover it for ourselves by a journey which no one can undertake for us, an effort which no one can spare us.

So, in what ways are you mad?

There would come a moment with every book when we would feel that something was incongruous, misunderstood, or constraining, and it would give us a responsibility to leave our guide behind and continue our thoughts alone.

A man can acquire anything in solitude except a character

At the end of hours of train-dreaming, we may feel we have been returned to ourselves - that is, brought back into contact with emotions and ideas of importance to us. It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not; the domestice setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, but who may not be who we essentially are.

If we are not regularly deeply embarrassed by who we are, the journey to self-knowledge hasn't begun.

ReacÈ›ia celorlalÈ›i la purtarea noastr? este comparabil? cu o oglind? pentru c? ne întoarce o imagine a noastr? pe care singuri nu suntem în stare s? o vedem. De asta ceilalÈ›i sunt indispensabili, ca s? ne dea ceva ce nu putem înÈ›elege singuri, imaginea propriului caracter. Cine sunt eu f?r? ca ceilalÈ›i s? îmi dea un indiciu?

A momentus but until then overlooked fact was making its first appearance: that I had inadvertently brought myself with me to the island.

A momentous but until then overlooked fact was making its first appearance: that I had inadvertently brought myself with me to the island.

You are allowed to be.

Insomnia can, when it goes on for weeks, be hell. But in smaller doses -- a night here and there -- it doesn't always need a cure. It may even be an asset, a help with some key troubles of the soul. Crucial insights that we need to convey to ourselves can often be received only at night, like city church bells that have to wait until dark to be heard.

a reason to start over new, the reason is you.

Leggere vuol dire sottrarsi. Rendersi irreperibili. Sarebbe già diverso» disse Sir Kevin «se come passatempo fosse meno… egoistico». «Egoistico?». «Forse dovrei dire solipsistico». «E allora lo dica». Al che Sir Kevin si lanciò. «Se potessimo veicolare le sue letture per uno scopo più ampio: acculturare il paese, ad esempio, per promuovere la lettura fra i giovani.

It was almost a side-effect that this caused me to educate myself to a degree which was beyond anything a school could hope to achieve. My own appetite for knowledge and reading and connection had led me, and that is how education works, not by spoon-feeding, but by stimulating the appetite so that children cannot wait to feed themselves.

With wonder and a growing absence of fear she realized, I am more than I was an hour ago.