Quotes About Self-discovery

No lifetime is long enough for those who wish to create, Raul. Or for those who simply wish to understand themselves and their lives.

You've had your chance, Richard. Scott's a big boy now, and if he wants to spend a few years chanting mantras and giving away his lunch money to some bearded horse's ass with a Jehovah Complex, well, you've had your chance to help him, so what do you say you just get on with your screwed-up life, Richard E. Baedecker

There has never been another you. With no effort on your part you were born to be something very special and set apart. What you are going to do in appreciation of that gift is a decision only you can make.

It turns out that it is possible to live an entire life—even an examined life, to the degree that I had relentlessly examined mine—and still not know the truth of oneself.

From Carl Jung: "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate." —

Sometimes I think I have organized the inner crowd. For a brief, breathtaking moment, I feel completely whole. I understand that I am comprised of many selves that make up a single chorus. To listen to the music this chorus makes, to recognize it as music, as something noble, varied, patterned, beautiful — that is the work of a lifetime.

think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be," wrote Joan Didion in her essay "On Keeping a Notebook," "whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, and who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.

Sometimes people suggested that I must have an amazing memory—that surely I must recall so many scenes, moments, sensory details from my early years. But the truth is that I have a terrible memory. I struggled to access any of my childhood or even my teenage years. I had no recollection of it as a story. And so I followed my own line of words to see where it would lead me.

What if I had always known that the reason I looked different and felt different was in fact because I was different? It would be easy to fantasize that this would have been better. But we can never know what lies at the heart of the path not taken.

What she doesn't realize is that I have survived for her as well -- and only now am I beginning to survive for myself.

course, if you haven't received

Let me fall if I must fall. The one I will become will catch me." —THE BAAL SHEM TOV

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.

He isn't trying to transform himself into something different; he's trying to transform someone different back into himself.

From this moment I began to conclude in my mind that it was possible for me to be more happy in this forsaken, solitary condition that it was possible I should ever have been in any other particular state in the world; and with this thought I was going to give thanks to God for bringing me to this place.

dar oamenii nu se cunosc pe ei înÈ™iÈ™i pân? ce nu-s puÈ™i la încercare, iar curajul se dobândeÈ™te cu timpul È™i prin experien??.

Once when I was about 13, in an angry fit, I walked out of the house vowing I would never return. It was a beautiful summer day, and I walked far along lovely lanes, till gradually the stillness and beauty calmed and soothed me, and after some hours I returned repentant and almost melted. Since then when I am angry, I do this if I can, and find it the best cure.

It's not the highs along the way that matter. It's who you become.

Steve Jobs gave a heartfelt talk to a graduating class at Stanford University. His advice: "Don't let the voice of others' opinions drown out your inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become."3

An altered trait—a new characteristic that arises from a meditation practice—endures apart from meditation itself.

The truth is, if we become comfortable with who we are rather than who we think we should be, then we will be less insecure.

The story of Pi is the story of all of us. We all have tigers under our tarpaulins - tigers that, we feel, could destroy us. We think we want to be rid of our tigers. But the truth is, we would feel a great loss if they ran away, because ultimately, each tiger is part of us.

God told Abraham to leave his home and set for journey and to have faith of being taken care of. Not just an external journey, it was also a journey upon into oneself.

You are more likely to learn something by finding surprises in your own behavior than by hearing surprising facts about people in general.