Quotes About Self-awareness

J'ai la peau de l'âme trop sensible. Il faudrait apprendre à son âme à marcher pieds nus.

There are only a few things worse than having to face up to the fact that the predicaments one finds oneself in are usually the results of one's own foolish actions.

And one day she said to me, 'For the rest of my life, it's the first thing they'll say about me when I leave the room.' And I remember thinking: Yes that's true, it will be. But we can't really do anything about what they say when we leave the room. We'll never be able to control that. And we shouldn't try. Our job is just to...well, be in the room while we're there, and try not to think too much about where we're not. Whatever room we happen to be in, just, be there.

if you're paying attention, if your eyes and your ears and your mind are open, as they should be open. You can know and then, critically, hold on to that knowledge, even if he loves you (or seems to), even if he chooses you (or seems to), even if he promises to make you happy (which no one, not one person on the planet, can possibly do). And part of her, a big part of her, had obviously wanted to be the one who told them this. Because I am such a competent

In fact, the real source of all thosedifferences, is that the savage lives within himself, whereas thecitizen, constantly beside himself, knows only how to live in theopinion of others; insomuch that it is, if I may say so, merely fromtheir judgment that he derives the consciousness of his own existence.

He ahí las pruebas funestas de que la mayor parte de nuestros males son obra nuestra, casi todos los cuales hubiéramos evitado conservando la manera de vivir simple, uniforme y solitaria que nos fue prescrita por la Naturaleza. Si ella nos ha destinado a ser sanos, me atrevo casi a asegurar que el estado de reflexión es un estado contra la naturaleza, y que el hombre que medita es un animal degenerado.

But I do not use the Internet, because I know myself too well. Once I got on the Internet I would get so distracted, I'd be basically giving one of my books to the Internet because I wouldn't be writing. I'd be playing on that machine. Interview by Associated Press Nov 03, 2010

Más vale ser un hombre viejo que un muchacho que se cree hombre.

If there was reassurance in being looked at, it was not the same as being looked after—or being truly seen.

When you're alone, you're in bad compny

Comprendo muy bien que he ido demasiado lejos. Supongo que uno no puede prever los inconvenientes de la soledad.

When I was little, my Aunt Bigeois told me 'If you look at yourself too long in the mirror, you'll see a monkey.' I must have looked at myself even longer than that: what I see is well below the monkey, on the fringe of the vegetable world, at the level of jellyfish.

I exist. It's sweet, so sweet, so slow. And light: you'd think it floated all by itself. It stirs. It brushes by me, melts and vanishes. Gently, gently. There is bubbling water in my mouth. I swallow. It slides down my throat, it caresses me—and now it comes up again into my mouth. For ever I shall have a little pool of whitish water in my mouth—lying low—grazing my tongue. And this pool is still me. And the tongue. And the throat is me.

My thought is me: that's why I can't stop. I exist because I think...and I can't stop myself from thinking. At this very moment- it's frightful -if I exist, it is because I am horrified at existing.

Every word I say has chains round its ankles; every thought I think is weighted with heavy weights. Since I was born, hasn't every word I've said, every thought I've thought, everything I've done, been tied up, weighted, chained? And mind you, I know that with all this I don't succeed. Or I succeed in flashes only too damned well. ...But think how hard I try and how seldom I dare. Think - and have a bit of pity. That is, if you ever think, you apes, which I doubt.

There is no looking-glass here and I don't know what I am like now. I remember watching myself brush my hair and how my eyes looked back at me. The girl I saw was myself yet not quite myself. Long ago when I was a child and very lonely I tried to kiss her. But the glass was between us - hard, cold and misted over with my breath. Now they have taken everything away. What am I doing in this place and who am I?

The fact is,' said Norah, 'that there's something wrong with our family. We're soft, or lazy, or something.' 

Je ne savais bien comprendre que le témoignage de mes propres yeux.

Vous voulez que je sois sincère, répliquai-je, et vous voulez en même temps que je n'aie pas à rougir de moi. Comment ne voyez-vous pas que tout sentiment profond a des ramifications devant lesquelles on reste effrayé?

Know thyself,' said Socrates. Know thyself,' said Sappho, 'and make sure that the Church never finds out.

It is not possible to control the outside of yourself until you have mastered your breathing space. It is not possible to change anything until you understand the substance you wish to change.

Unhappiness is selfish, grief is selfish. For whom are the tears?

Poor me. There's nothing so sweet as wallowing in it is there? Wallowing is sex for depressives.

Don't mix your heart with your liver.