Quotes About Self-awareness

The false self is based on two foundational pillars: one is the energy invested in the emotional programs for happiness and the other is the tendency to over-identify with the particular group from which we come or to which we belong.

The false self is deeply entrenched. You can change your name and address, religion, country, and clothes. But as long as you don't ask it to change, the false self simply adjusts to the new environment. For example, instead of drinking your friends under the table as a significant sign of self-worth and esteem, if you enter a monastery, as I did, fasting the other monks under the table could become your new path to glory.

Every man naturally desires knowledge; but what good is knowledge without fear of God? Indeed a humble rustic who serves God is better than a proud intellectual who neglects his soul to study the course of the stars.He who knows himself well becomes mean in his own eyes and is not happy when praised by men.

Most people," Abraham Lincoln said, "are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

It's strange how you're sometimes forced to assume an unsympathetic view of yourself through borrowed eyes.

The farther you progress toward a vision of our species without limiting conditions on your consciousness, the farther you drift away from what makes you a person among persons in the human community.

For us, then, life is a confidence trick we must run on ourselves, hoping we do not catch on to any monkey business that would leave us stripped of our defense mechanisms and standing stark naked before the silent, staring void. To end this self-deception, to free our species of the paradoxical imperative to be and not to be conscious, our backs breaking by degrees upon a wheel of lies, we must cease reproducing. Nothing less will do.

As it turns out, however, the more specific reason that unskilled or incompetent people overestimate their abilities far more than others is because they lack a key skill called "metacognition." This is the ability to know when you're not good at something by stepping back, looking at what you're doing, and then realizing that you're doing it wrong.

The lack of metacognition sets up a vicious loop, in which people who don't know much about a subject do not know when they're in over their head talking with an expert on that subject. An argument ensues, but people who have no idea how to make a logical argument cannot realize when they're failing to make a logical argument. In short order, the expert is frustrated and the layperson is insulted. Everyone walks away angry. Even

The Dunning-Kruger Effect, in sum, means that the dumber you are, the more confident you are that you're not actually dumb.

the more specific reason that unskilled or incompetent people overestimate their abilities far more than others is because they lack a key skill called "metacognition.

You can only miss so many swings in baseball before you have to admit you might not be a good hitter, but you can mangle grammar and syntax every day without ever realizing how poorly you speak.

Just as we are not all equally able to carry a tune or draw a straight line, many people simply cannot recognize the gaps in their own knowledge or understand their own inability to construct a logical argument. Education

So few people are really aware of their thoughts. Their minds run all over the place without their permission, and they go along for the ride unknowingly and without making a choice.

No man remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself.

I may be the wrong person for my life.

We both liked children; we just didn't want any ourselves. There were children everywhere, and we saw no reason to start our own brand. Young couples plunge into parenthood and about half the time they end up with some ghastly problem on their hands. We thought we'd leave that to others.

We become contemplatives when God discovers Himself in us.

Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself.

Anxiety is the mark of spiritual insecurity.

Keeping a journal has taught me that there is not so much new in your life as you sometimes think. When you re-read your journal you find out that your latest discovery is something you already found out five years ago. Still, it is true that one penetrates deeper and deeper into the same ideas and the same experiences.

The conscious experience of being a subject arises when a single organism learns to enslave itself.

Developing a consciousness culture has nothing to do with establishing a religion or a particular political agenda. On the contrary, a true consciousness culture will always be subversive, by encouraging individuals to take responsibility for their own lives.

If he were not as he is, he would be better than himself.