Quotes About Self-awareness

We have less reason to be surprised or offended when we find others differ from us in opinions because we very often differ from ourselves.

That I want nothing," said the Prince, "or that I know not what I want, is the cause of my complaint; if I had any known want, I should have a certain wish; that wish would excite endeavour, and I should not then repine to see the sun move so slowly towards the western mountains, or to lament when the day breaks, and sleep will no longer hide me from myself.

All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare.

He who forms his opinion of himself in solitude, without knowing the powers of other men, is very liable to error. - On Alexander Pope

One must never be either content with, or impatient with, oneself.

It is much easier to find fault with others, than to be faultless ourselves.

It is true, my Lucy, that we young women are too apt to be pleased with the admiration pretended for us by the other Sex. But I have always endeavour'd to keep down any foolish pride of this sort, by such considerations as these: That flattery is the vice of men: That they seek to raise us, in order to lower us, and in the end to exalt themselves on the ruins of the pride they either hope to find or inspire:

Our perfection lies in our imperfection.

how we value and treat ourselves, not just on how we value or treat others.

Somehow Messies have a hard time coming to the realization that some jobs we must do are unpleasant and tiring. It is difficult for us to accept that giving away stuff will hurt us, but that it is okay to be hurt. Optimistically, like children, we feel that if a job is hard, we really can't be expected to do it.

I have a body, but I am not my body. I have a mind and thoughts, but I am not my mind. I have emotions and feelings, but I am not my emotions.

You have to understand, it's how we are here. It's like we're all asleep. We grow up, we fall asleep, and then the horrors that scared us before - we're doing them. We're the monsters in the nightmare.

You are your life, so your life is wherever you are.

that other people have told you and living one that's based on a lie you've told yourself.

In your thirties something strange starts to happen. It's a mere hiccup at first, an instant of hesitation. How old are you? Oh, I'm — you start confidently, but then you stop. You were going to say thirty-three, but you're not. You're thirty-five. And then you're bothered, because you wonder if this is the beginning of the end. It is, of course, but it's decades before you admit it.

To be sure, I'm not perfect wife material: I'm neurotic. I'm compulsive. I speak before I think and can't cook worth a damn. I'm messy and germaphobic all at once, and it's not entirely unheard of for me to get hold of the wrong end of the stick and then hang there like a pitbull.

I stared at him for a long time. If he wanted to end his search for the beast, he need look no further than a mirror.

But then in your thirties something strange starts to happen. It's a mere hiccup at first, an instant of hesitation. How old are you? Oh, I'm—you start confidently, but then you stop. You were going to say thirty-three, but you're not. You're thirty-five. And then you're bothered, because you wonder if this is the beginning of the end. It is, of course, but it's decades before you admit it.

stared at him for a long time. If he wanted to end his search for the beast, he need look no further than a mirror.

Allowing yourself to stop reading a book - at page 25, 50, or even, less frequently, a few chapters from the end - is a rite of passage in a reader's life, the literary equivalent of a bar mitzvah or a communion, the moment at which you look at yourself and announce: Today I am an adult. I can make my own decisions.

But my subconscious mind--the part I've heard writers call the lizard brain--could and did: it told me to reach for Anne Lamott or Edith Wharton or Calvin Trillin instead. And if I've learned one thing in my decades on earth, it's this: Don't argue with your lizard brain; it knows you better than you know yourself.

if I've learned one thing in my decades on earth, it's this: Don't argue with your lizard brain; it knows you better than you know yourself.

The plain truth can be the hardest thing to see when it's about yourself. If you don't want to know the truth, you'll do anything to disguise it.

We all own a beast called anger. It can serve us: many good things come of anger at bad things; many unjust things are made just. But first we all have to figure out how to civilize it.