Quotes About Self-awareness

If we understood ourselves better we would damage ourselves less.

It goes without saying, I believe, that if we understood ourselves better, we would damage ourselves less.

There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who know that he is going under in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man.

Now, from this night, this coming morning, no matter how many beds I find myself in between now and my final bed, I shall never be able to have any more of those boyish, zestful affairs--which are, really, when one thinks of it, a kind of higher, or, anyway, more pretentious masturbation. People are too various to be treated so lightly. I am too various to be trusted.

One must be careful not to take refuge in any delusion.

The person who distrusts himself has no touchstone for reality - for this touchstone can be only oneself. Such a person interpose between himself and reality nothing less than a labyrinth of attitudes. And these attitudes, furthermore, though the person is usually unaware of it (is unaware of so much), are historical and public attitudes.

An identity is questioned only when it is menaced...Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self...

It doesn't do any good to blame people or the time-- one is oneself all those people. We are the time.

The trouble with a secret life is that it is very frequently a secret from the person who lives it and not at all a secret for the people he encounters.

Therefore, whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves.

The world tends to trap and immobilize you in the role you play; and it is not always easy—in fact, it is always extremely hard—to maintain a kind of watchful, mocking distance between oneself as one appears to be and oneself as one actually is.

quoted Djuna Barnes: "Too great a sense of identity makes a man feel he can do no wrong. And too little does the same.

And here I was, left with only myself to deal with. It was entirely up to me.

It's very hard to live with that," said Eric. "I mean, with the sense that one is never what one seems — never — and yet, what one seems to be is probably, in some sense, almost exactly what one is.

Malcolm—the world's much more like me than it is like you. People recognize me. They see me in their mirror. But they don't hardly ever see you. You're not in the mirror with them.

It doesn't do to look too hard into this mystery, which is as far from being simple as it is from being safe. We don't know enough about ourselves. I think it's better to know that you don't know, that way you can grow with the mystery as the mystery grows in you. But, these days, of course, everybody knows everything, that's why so many people are so lost.

It's very hard to live with that,' said Eric. 'I mean, with the sense that one is never what one seems—never—and yet, what one seems to be is probably, in some sense, almost exactly what one is.

anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.

People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster. The

The power to define the other seals one's definition of oneself.

I mean, I think you've got to be truthful about the life you have. Otherwise, there's no possibility of achieving the life you want.

We don't know enough about ourselves. I think it's better to know that you don't know, that way you can grow with the mystery as the mystery grows in you. But, these days, of course, everybody knows everything, that's why so many people, especially most white people, are so lost.

Non serve cercar di andare troppo a fondo in questo mistero che è tanto poco semplice quanto poco innocuo. Non sappiamo abbastanza di noi stessi. Credo sia meglio esser consci di non saperne niente, così si può crescere con il mistero e intanto il mistero cresce in te. Ma la giorno d'oggi, naturalmente, tutti sanno tutto ed è per questo che tanta gente si perde.

It occurred to him that the question was not really what he was going to get but how he was to discover his possibilities and become reconciled to them.