Quotes About Self-awareness

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

Blessed are the forgetful; for they get over their stupidities, too.

Memory says, 'I did that.' Pride replies, 'I could not have done that.' Eventually, memory yields.

Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, daß er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.

We labour at our daily work more ardently and thoughtlessly than is necessary to sustain our life because it is even more necessary not to have leisure to stop and think. Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself.

And if a friend does you wrong, then say: I forgive you what you have done to me; that you have done it to YOURSELF, however--how could I forgive that!

So long as men praise you, you can only be sure that you are not yet on your own true path but on someone else's.

One has to know the size of one's stomach.

Do you want to go along with others? or go on ahead? or go off on your own?...you must know what you want and that you want. Fourth question for the conscience.

The person who fights monsters should make sure that in the process, he does not become a monster himself. Because when you stare down at an abyss, the abyss stares back at you.

What do you consider the most humane? - To spare someone shame. What is the seal of liberation? - To no longer be ashamed in front of oneself.

Men of profound sadness betray themselves when they are happy: they have a mode of seizing upon happiness as though they would choke and strangle it, out of jealousy--ah, they know only too well that it will flee from them!

Even the most courageous among us only rarely has the courage to face what he already knows.

Altered opinions do not alter a man's character (or do so very little); but they do illuminate individual aspects of the constellation of his personality which with a different constellation of opinions had hitherto remained dark and unrecognizable.

Discovering that one is loved in return really ought to disenchant the lover with the beloved. 'What? this person is modest enough to love even you? Or stupid enough? Or-or-

In the end one experiences only oneself.

I have done that', says my memory. I cannot have done that—says my pride and remains unshakeable. Finally—memory yields.

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.

Your bad love of yourselves makes solitude a prison to you.

One who cannot leave himself behind on the threshold of the moment and forget the past, who cannot stand on a single point, like a goddess of victory, without fear or giddiness, will never know what happiness is; and, worse still, will never do anything that makes others happy.

In his heart every man knows quite well that, being unique, he will be in the world only once and that no imaginable chance will for a second time gather together into a unity so strangely variegated an assortment as he is: he knows it but hides it like a bad conscience.

Any human being who does not wish to be part of the masses need only stop making things easy for himself. Let him follow his conscience, which calls out to him: "Be yourself! All that you are now doing, thinking, desiring, all that is not you.

My thoughts', said the wanderer to his shadow, 'should show me where I stand, but they should not betray to me where I am going. I love ignorance of the future and do not want to perish of impatience and premature tasting of things promised.

So I ask my pride that it always go along with my wisdom. And when my wisdom leaves me one day alas - it loves to flyway - let my pride then fly with my folly.