Quotes About Self-awareness

The most important thing I realised was that the deepest source of my suffering is in the patterns of my own mind. When I want something and it doesn't happen, my mind reacts by generating suffering. Suffering is not an objective condition in the outside world. It is a mental reaction generated by my own mind. Learning this is the first step towards ceasing to generate more suffering.

Just like Riley Andersen, most people barely know themselves, and when they try to "listen to themselves" they easily become prey to external manipulations. The voice we hear inside our heads is never trustworthy, because it always reflects state propaganda, ideological brainwashing, and commercial advertisements, not to mention biochemical bugs.

If this is so, then our entire understanding of the history of happiness might be misguided. Maybe it isn't so important whether people's expectations are fulfilled and whether they enjoy pleasant feelings. The main question is whether people know the truth about themselves.

In the end he came to the realization that suffering is not caused by ill fortune, by social injustice, or by divine whims. Rather, suffering is caused by the behaviour patterns of one's own mind

they really think about it, but most of the time they don't think about it, so they don't know it.

Doing risk sport had taught me another important lesson: never exceed your limits. You push the envelope and you live for those moments when you're right on the edge, but you don't go over. You have to be true to yourself; you have to know your strengths and limitations and live within your means.

What do you want?" I ask. "A large slice of humble pie?" "We don't serve that here." "Sure we do," Dan calls. "But you ate it all." I glance over my shoulder at him. "Do you mind?

I could probably give you a list of a dozen pet peeves I have about my own physicality and why I couldn't get a second date.

Sometimes you get a flash of what you look like to other people.

I am very selfish, really. I lived for love.

Generations from now, when historians write about these times, they might note that, in the early decades of the twenty-first century, the United States succeeded in its great and historic mission--it globalized the world. But along the way, they might write, it forgot to globalize itself.

I don't enjoy eating humble pie.

I was aware of myself. And, of course, the only things that are aware of themselves and conscious of their individuality are irritated eyes, cut fingers, sore teeth. A healthy eye, finger, tooth might as well not even be there.

Ever since he repented of religion and shaved off his clerical beard and mustache, he has had the constant feeling that he has taken off his trousers, and that his nose protrudes altogether indecently and must at all cost be covered.

Pride would never be her ally.

We all have vices, visible and invisible. Some we deliberately keep secret. Others we don't even realize or we refuse to admit we have…Vices can be lots of fun, or they can turn your life into a living hell. Accept them for what they are, just another aspect of the mind's creation, and you can enjoy them—if you choose—without being broken by them. - Zeena Schreck for VICE Magazine

All of these things considered, it is not surprising that one can detect echoes, correspondences and even an eternal return or two within the work of a single author. The passage of time does bring changes, yea and alas; but still, I would recognize myself anywhere.

I believed I was a salamander, and it seems I am nothing but an impediment.

I wish I had been what I thought I was; and so debonnaire; and so debonnaire.

When you find yourself on the side of majority, question yourself about what you are doing and why. It is likely wrong.

Cherish that which is within you, and shut off that which is without for much knowledge is a curse.

The effect of life in society is to complicate and confuse our existence, making us forget who we really are by causing us to become obsessed with what we are not.

If you'd called me an ox, I'd have said I was an ox; if you'd called me a horse, I'd have said I was a horse. If the reality is there and you refuse to accept the name men give it, you'll only lay yourself open to double harassment.

When I speak of good hearing, I do not mean listening to others; I mean simply listening to yourself. When I speak of good eyesight, I do not mean looking at others; I mean simply looking at yourself. He who does not look at himself but looks at others, who does not get hold of himself but gets hold of others, is getting what other men have got and failing to get what he himself has got. He finds joy in what brings joy to other men, but finds no joy in what would bring joy to himself.