Quotes About Self-awareness

When jarred, unavoidably, by circumstance, revert at once to yourself, and don't lose the rhythm more than you can help. You'll have a better group of harmony if you keep on going back to it.

whom thou dost stand in fear of what they shall judge of thee, what they themselves judge of themselves.

Whensoever by some present hard occurrences thou art constrained to be in some sort troubled and vexed, return unto thyself as soon as may be, and be not out of tune longer than thou must needs. For so shalt thou be the better able to keep thy part another time, and to maintain the harmony, if thou dost use thyself to this continually; once out, presently to have recourse unto it, and to begin again.

Don't be irritated at people's smell or bad breath. What's the point? With that mouth, with those armpits, they're going to produce that odor. —But they have a brain! Can't they figure it out? Can't they recognize the problem? So you have a brain as well. Good for you. Then use your logic to awaken his. Show him. Make him realize it. If he'll listen, then you'll have solved the problem. Without anger. 28a.

spend not thy time in thinking, what such a man doth, and to what end: what he saith, and what he thinks, and what he is about, and such other things or curiosities, which make a man to rove and wander from the care and observation of that part of himself, which is rational, and overruling

Take away your judging thought, and then there is taken away the complaint, I have been harmed. Take away the complaint, I have been harmed, and the harm is taken away.

Look inward. Don't let the true nature or value of anything elude you.

for a man to be proud and high conceited, that he is not proud and high conceited, is of all kind of pride and presumption, the most intolerable.

The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me.

A man who has put first his own mind and divinity, and worships the supremacy of the god within him, makes no drama of his life, no hand-wringing, no craving for solitude or crowds:

To this end there must be continual self-examination. "If thou may not continually gather thyself together, namely sometimes do it, at least once a day, the morning or the evening. In the morning purpose, in the evening discuss the manner, what thou hast been this day, in word, work, and thought.

Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions- not outside.

So you know how things stand. Now forget what they think of you. Be satisfied if you can live the rest of your life, however short, as your nature demands. Focus on that, and don't let anything distract you. You've wandered all over and finally realized that you never found what you were after: how to live.

4. Remember how long you've been putting this off, how many extensions the gods gave you, and you didn't use them. At some point you have to recognize what world it is that you belong to; what power rules it and from what source you spring; that there is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don't use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return.

The properties of the Rational Soul are these: sees itself, dissects itself, moulds itself to its own fill, itself reaps its own fruits.

51. Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do. Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you. Sanity means tying it to your own actions.

When faced with people's bad behavior, turn around and ask when you have acted like that. When you saw money as a good, or pleasure, or social position. Your anger will subside as soon as you recognize that they acted under compulsion (what else could they do?)

What a shame that the mind can command the face to assume whatever look or expression it pleases, but cannot command itself and govern its own thoughts.

Apenas amanezca, hazte en tu interior esta cuenta: hoy tropezaré con algún entremetido, con algún ingrato, con algún insolente, con un doloso, un envidioso, un egoísta.

Be content to seem what you really are.

4. Don't waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people—unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You'll be too preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what they're saying, and what they're thinking, and what they're up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind.

Upon every action that thou art about, put this question to thyself; How will this when it is done agree with me? Shall I have no occasion to repent of it?

Spend not the remnant of thy days in thoughts and fancies concerning other men

13. Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions—not outside.