Quotes About Self-discovery

Whenever I let my mind wander, and wonder who I would like to have been if I had not been born C. Everett Koop, the person who comes to mind most frequently is Paul Brand.

Man wird nicht dadurch erleuchtet, daß man sich Lichtgestalten vorstellt, sondern durch Bewusstmachung der Dunkelheit.

I have learned that you can go anywhere you want to go and do anything you want to do and buy all the things that you want to buy and meet all the people that you want to meet and learn all the things that you desire to learn and if you do all these things but are not madly in love: you have still not begun to live.

It came to me that I hadn't known I had been being less than I could have been until then, when I saw there was so much more of the world for me to be myself within.

It came to me that I hadn't known I had been being less than I could have been until then, when I saw there was so much more of the world for me to be myself

If you sum up what people tell you about their experiences [on the path of individuation], you can formulate it this way: They came to themselves, they could accept themselves, they were able to become reconciled to themselves, and thus were reconciled to adverse circumstances and events.

To find out what is truly individual in ourselves, profound reflection is needed; and suddenly we realize how uncommonly difficult the discovery of individuality is.

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.

The highest, most decisive experience is to be alone with one's own self. You must be alone to find out what supports you, when you find that you can not support yourself. Only this experience can give you an indestructible foundation.

Somewhere, right at the bottom of one's own being, one generally does know where one should go and what one should do. But there are times when the clown we call "I" behaves in such a distracting fashion that the inner voice cannot make its presence felt.

The meaning of my existence is that life has addressed a question to me. Or, conversely, I myself am a question which is addressed to the world, and I must communicate my answer, for otherwise I am dependent upon the world's answer.

But, if you have nothing at all to create, then perhaps you create yourself.

Every step closer to my soul excites the scornful laughter of my devils, those cowardly ear-whisperers and poison-mixers.

The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner contradictions, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposite halves.

Man becomes whole, integrated, calm, fertile, and happy when (and only when) the process of individuation is complete, when the conscious and the unconscious have learned to live at peace and to complement one another.

Our suffering comes from our unlived life--the unseen, unfelt parts of our psyche.

The mirror does not flatter, it faithfully shows whatever looks into it; namely, the face we never show to the world because we cover it with the persona, the mask of the actor.

Man's task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.

We should grow like a tree that likewise does not know its law. We tie ourselves up with intentions, not mindful of the fact that intention is the limitation, yes, the exclusion of life.

Nothing so promotes the growth of consciousness as [the] inner confrontation of opposites.

I have frequently seen people become neurotic when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life.

Why are you looking around for help? Do you believe that help will come from outside? What is to come is created in you and from you. Hence look into yourself. Do not compare, do not measure. No other way is like yours. All other ways deceive and tempt you. You must fulfil the way that is in you.

Not your thinking, but your being, is distinctiveness. Therefore not after difference, ye think it, must ye strive; but after YOUR OWN BEING. At bottom, therefore, there is only one striving, namely, the striving after your own being.

the soul said, "Is this what you think it means to be human?