Quotes About Self-awareness

I had begun to see the past like this: there is a line; you can draw it yourself, or sometimes it gets drawn for you; either way, there it is, your past, a collection of people you used to be

But I seemed unable to do anything that pleased anyone and that included me, my own self, though at that time I did not know that myself constituted such a thing as existence

How do you get to be the sort of victor who can claim to be the vanquished also?

The greatest teacher in the world is you, yourself."

he still thought I was accusing him or calling him to account. He said, "People *do* grow. You may not think much of *me*, but my children will be great!" I said , "They will be black and blind or passing for white and self-blinded. Those are the only choices.

All that you accomplish or fail to accomplish with your life is the direct result of your thoughts.

A man is literally what he thinks

Only himself manacles man.

Circumstances do not determine a man, they reveal him.

As he thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains.

As a man thinketh in his heart, so shall he be

A man becomes calm in the measure that he understands himself as a thought-evolved being. For such knowledge necessitates the understanding of others as the result of thought, and as he develops a right understanding, and sees ever more clearly the internal relations of things by the action of cause and effect, he ceases to fuss, fume, worry, and grieve. He remains poised, steadfast, serene.

Do I look like the flower type of guy?

If anyone is unwilling to descend into himself, because this is too painful, he will remain superficial in his writing. . . If I perform to myself, then it's this that the style expresses. And then the style cannot be my own. If you are unwilling to know what you are, your writing is a form of deceit.

True solitude does not come from being physically alone but from the discovery that a fundamental problem of ours cannot find its solution in us or in others.

Il cuore dell'uomo, autocoscienza del tutto

Quando sei malinconica, quando sei arrabbiata, quando sei contro, quando sei piena di «forse», di «se», di «ma» e di «però», a che cosa aderisci? A niente, tendenzialmente a niente, e dunque sbagli: ti depauperi, ti svuoti. E, infatti, ciò che si incrementa è la solitudine.

Each of us—on the outside, in front of others—dresses in dignity, but inside himself he is well aware of these unconfessable things that pass through the secrecy of his heart.

For man never reasons so much and becomes so introspective as when he suffers ; since he is anxious to get at the cause of his sufferings, to learn who has produced them, and whether it is just or unjust that he should have to bear them. On the other hand, when he is happy, he takes his happiness as it comes and doesn't analyse it, just as if happiness were his right.

The idea that others saw in me one that was not the I whom I knew, one whom they alone could know, as they looked at me from without, with eyes that were not my own, eyes that conferred upon me an aspect destined to remain always foreign to me, although it was one that was in me, one that was my own to them (a "mine," that is to say, that was not for me!)—a life into which, although it was my own, I had no power to penetrate—this idea gave me no rest.

I am an "unrealized" character, dramatically speaking...

And no one realizes we should all, always, look like that, each with his eyes full of horror at his own, inescapable solitude.

We spend our lives walking into our own mirrors. All we see is ourselves as we walk down the road.

No es el amor quien muere, Somos nosotros mismos.