Quotes About Self-awareness

Thank you sir for your criticism. If you knew about me what I know about me, you would have written a longer letter.

A man who finds himself among others is irritated because he does not know why he is not one of the others. In bed next to a girl he loves, he forgets that he does not know why he is himself instead of the body he touches. Without knowing it, he suffers from the mental darkness that keeps him from screaming that he himself is the girl who forgets his presence while shuddering in his arms.

I can now see to the bottom of my own depths, there is nothing stopping my gaze, no obstacle is in the way. And there is nothing there.

It's a fine thing to rise above pride, but you must have pride in order to do so.

Purity is not imposed upon us as though it were a kind of punishment, it is one of those mysterious but obvious conditions of that supernatural knowledge of ourselves in the Divine, which we speak of as faith. Impurity does not destroy this knowledge, it slays our need for it.

When writing of oneself one should show no mercy.

When I write, I know who I am, but once I stop, I am no longer so sure.

When I look over the photographs Stieglitz took of me-some of them more than sixty years ago-I wonder who that person is. It is as if in my one life I have lived many lives. If the person in the photographs were living in this world today, she would be quite a different person-but it doesn't matter-Stieglitz photographed her then.

I have done nothing all summer but wait for myself to be myself again.

I am divided between my man and a life with him---and some thing of the outdoors---of your world---that is in my blood---and that I know I will never get rid of--- I have to get along with my divided self the best way I can---

Everyone is a bore to someone. That is unimportant. The thing to avoid is being a bore to oneself.

When I write a page that reads badly I know that it is myself who has written it. When it reads well it has come through from somewhere else.

Our egos motivate us to believe that we will feel more peaceful and happy if we find someone to blame and direct our anger at that person.

used to feel that I was a victim of the world I saw. When things would go wrong, I would blame the world or those in it for my misery and feel justified in my anger. Today, I know I am not a victim of the world I see, and therefore tend to take responsibility for whatever I perceive and for the emotions I experience.

We humans fear the beast within the wolf because we do not understand the beast within ourselves.

I withdrew a small card from the pouch. The front of it was filled with lines of elegant, hand-lettered script. "What does it say?" Dad asked, leaning forward. "The Four Remembers of Life," I read. "Number one: Remember, you are unique. Number two: Remember, there is purpose to your life. Number three: Remember you are free to choose what you are and what you become. And number four: Remember, you are not alone.

The greatest failure is a person who never admits that he can be a failure.

I'm a Ford, not a Lincoln.

I am not a hero. Life has not required it of me.

At fifteen, I have taken up the burdens of a woman, and have come to feel I am one. Furthermore, I am glad of it. For I now no longer have the time to fall into such sins as I committed as a girl, when hours that were my own to spend spread before me like a gift.

I have always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific.

One of the reasons why so few of us ever act, instead of react, is because we are continually stifling our deepest impulses.

The struggle to learn to listen to and respect our own intuitive, inner promptings is the greatest challenge of all.

We are so clothed in rationalization and dissemblance that we can recognize but dimly the deep primal impulses that motivate us.