Quotes About Self-awareness

What are you? A human being. If you think of yourself as a unit apart, then it is in accordance with your nature to live to old age, to be rich, and be healthy. But if your view of yourself involves being part of a whole, circumstances may make it right for you to be sick, go on a dangerous journey, endure poverty, even die before your time. Don't complain.

If you are praised by others, be skeptical of yourself. For it is no easy feat to hold onto your inner harmony while collecting accolades.

Know, first, who you are; and then adorn yourself accordingly.

only judge your own thoughts, desires, and actions as good or evil.

When you are feeling upset, angry, or sad, don't blame another for your state of mind. Your condition is the result of your own opinions and interpretations.

Jos joku kertoo sinulle, että se ja se panettelee sinua, älä ryhdy puolustautumaan panetteluja vastaan, vaan sano: Hän ei nähtävästi tiennyt muita vikojani, sillä muutoin hän ei olisi tyytynyt mainitsemaan vain noita.

First, tell yourself what you want to be, then act your part accordingly.

First, say to yourself what you would be; then do what you have to do

Whenever someone helps or hinders you, or praises or criticizes you, remember that they see you only through the lens of their own impressions. If they act or speak from a warped perspective, they hurt themselves—not you. For if someone mistakes truth for falsehood, the truth is not harmed, but only the person deceived. Keeping this in mind, gently turn away any insult or injury. "It seems right to them, though they are mistaken.

If a friend tells you that someone has criticized or insulted you, say, "They must not know about my other faults, or they would have pointed out those, too.

Rufus43 used to say, 'If you have nothing better to do than praise me for it, then my speech was a failure.' He used to address us in such a way as to make everyone sitting there suppose that someone had informed on them – that's how well he intuited the truth, and how vividly he evoked for each one of us our private faults.

If you are praised by others, be skeptical of yourself. For it is no easy feat to hold onto your inner harmony while collecting accolades. When grasping for one, you are likely to drop the other.

Remember that it is we who torment, we who make difficulties for ourselves – that is, our opinions do. What, for instance, does it mean to be insulted? Stand by a rock and insult it, and what have you accomplished? If someone responds to insult like a rock, what has the abuser gained with his invective?

When anyone provokes you, remember that it is actually your own opinion provoking you. It is not the person who insults or attacks you who torments your mind, but the view you take of these things. Do not be fooled by how things first appear. With time and greater perspective, you can regain inner peace.

If you take care of it and identify with it, you will never be blocked or frustrated; you won't have to complain, and never will need to blame or flatter anyone.

distinguish between your own and not your own, the things which are in your power and not in your power

If what charms you is nothing but abstract principles, sit down and turn them over quietly in your mind: but never dub yourself a Philosopher, nor suffer others to call you so. Say rather: He is in error; for my desires, my impulses are unaltered. I give in my adhesion to what I did before; nor has my mode of dealing with the things of sense undergone any change.

What did I lack then, anyway?

Jeff: I don't need a limousine to know who I am. At least I know I don't know.

Bilge, içindeki kusurlar?n nedenini ortaya ç?kar?r; ç?lg?n, bundan diÄŸerlerini suçlar.

It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.

Our preoccupation with other people - whether we aid or hinder them, love or hate them - is at bottom a means of getting away from ourselves. It is strange to contemplate that competition with others - the breathless race to get ahead of others - is basically a running away from ourselves

Lack of self-awareness renders us transparent. A soul that knows itself is opaque; like Adam after he ate from the tree of knowledge it uses words as fig leaves to cover its nakedness and shame.

No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart.