Quotes About Self-awareness

Gazing into the mirror, I saw myself as I was-a black silhouette in the room, a woman whose darkness had completely leaked through.

I'd chosen the regret I could live with best, that's all. I'd chosen the life I belonged to.

When he spoke, the roughness was gone from his voice. I could tell you I did it. That's what you wanna hear. I could tell you she did it to herself, but both ways I'd be lying. It was you who did it, Lily. You didn't mean it, but it was you.

At that moment she seemed everything I was not, and this came as a small revelation. I had hated in her what I lacked in myself.

Be careful, you can get enslaved twice, once in your body and once in your mind.

You have to find a mother inside yourself. We all do. Even if we already have a mother, we still have to find this part of ourselves inside. ... When you're unsure of yourself, when you start pulling back into doubt and small living, she's the one inside saying, Get up from there and live like the glorious girl you are. She's the power inside you.

But you can't talk yourself out of anger. Either you are angry or you're not.

She was trapped same as me, but she was trapped by her mind, by the minds of the people round her, not by the law. At the African church, Mr Vesey used to say, 'Be careful, you can get enslaved twice, once in your body and once in your mind.' I tried to tell her that. I said, 'My body might be a slave, but not my mind. For you, it's the other way round.

You know what? You think too much. It would do you a world of good to stop thinking and just go with your feelings once in a blue moon.

You have to find a mother inside yourself. We all do. Even if we already have a mother, we still have to find this part of ourselves inside.

Maybe one reason I had avoided anger was that like a lot of people I had thought there were only two responses to anger: to deny it or to strike out thoughtlessly. But other responses are possible.

August said, "You know what? You think too much. It would do you a world of good to stop thinking and just go with your feelings once in a blue moon.

Meekness. It isn't meekness I need, it's anger." I'd not forgotten this. I knelt beside my friend.

Ain't nobody can write down in a book what you worth.

daughter is a woman who remains internally dependent, who does not shape her identity and direction as a woman, but tends to accept the identity and direction projected onto her.

Brother Anthony leaned forward in his chair. "Contemplative waiting is consenting to be where we really are," he explained. "People recoil from it because they don't want to be present to themselves. Such waiting causes a deep existential loneliness to surface, a feeling of being disconnected from oneself and God. At the depths there is fear, fear of the dark chaos within ourselves.

Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others."21

Sometimes I was so busy being tuned in to outside ideas, expectations, and demands, I failed to hear the unique music in my soul.

I had got where I talked to her all the time. Like I would say, I didn't hear her talk back, so I hadn't lost my sanities.

My body might be a slave, but not my mind. For you, it's the other way round. I'd dismissed the words—what could she know of it? But I saw

Knowing the enemy enables you to take the offensive, knowing yourself enables you to stand on the defensive.

If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.

Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.

Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy, but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril.