Quotes About Self-knowledge

One of our greatest obstacles in knowing God is our own lack of self-knowledge. So we end up wearing a mask—before God, ourselves, and other people. And we can't become self-aware if we cut off our humanity out of fear of our feelings. This fear leads to unwillingness to know ourselves as we truly are and stunts our growth in Christ.

There is more to be pondered in the grain and texture of life than traditional fiction allows. The work of essayists is vital precisely because it permits and encourages self-knowledge in a way that is less indirect than fiction, more open and speculative.

FDR had the gifts of self-knowledge and a compassion for the plight of others—saving graces that enabled him to become one of a handful of truly great and transformative presidents.

You want self-knowledge? You should come to America. Just as the Mahatma had to go to jail and sit behind bars to write his autobiography. Or Nehru had to go to England to discover India. Things are clear only when looked at from a distance.

The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer.

Self-knowledge reveals to the soul that its natural motion is not, if uninterrupted, in a straight line, but circular, as around some inner object, about a center, the point to which it owes its origin.

Buddhism is primarily a study of mind and a system for training the mind. It is spiritual in nature, not religious. Its goal is self-knowledge, not salvation; freedom, not heaven. It relies on reason and analysis, contemplation and meditation, to transform knowledge about something into knowledge that surpasses understanding.

Even a monotonously undeviating path of self-examination does not necessarily lead to a mountain of self-knowledge. I stumble towards my grave confused, hurt and hungry ...

My failures may be my greatest successes. It is in failure that I have often drawn closer to God, learn to depend more on Him than myself, gained self-knowledge, and seen things in their right perspective.

A mind might ponder its thought for ages, and not gain so much self-knowledge as the passion of love shall teach it in a day.

But no man's a hero to himself. I've lived with me a lifetime. Will. I know everything worth knowing about myself—

To you and your mother, yes, I try. But no man's a hero to himself. I've lived with me a lifetime, Will. I know everything worth knowing about myself—

The striking thing about self-knowledge is that it may be lacking.

The first ethical move is not to abstract from my individual context, still less to discount it, but rather to understand what it consists in, to achieve self-knowledge as far as I can, and then to think about how best to live my life in these circumstances.

The only life we know well, the one on which we are the ultimate authority, is our own. The only experience to which we can bear witness is that which we have personally endured and observed.

Self-knowledge is not sold on the Rialto. And if it were, few people would buy.

Re-vision – the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction – is for woman more than a chapter in cultural history: it is an act of survival. Until we understand the assumptions in which we are drenched we cannot know ourselves. And this drive to self-knowledge, for women, is more than a search for identity: it is part of our refusal of the self-destructiveness of male-dominated society.

Many of the most accomplished girls are disconnecting from the truest parts of themselves, sacrificing essential self-knowledge to the pressure of who they think they ought to be.

In Major Sands the intelligence was absent; but like most men in his case he was not aware of it.

Throughout history, the North Star has guided the footsteps of the wayward traveler. So too does the spark of the Divine lead us to self-knowledge and God-realization.

Passion and drive are not the same at all. Passion pulls you toward something you cannot resist. Drive pushes you toward something you feel compelled or obligated to do. If you know nothing about yourself, you can't tell the difference. Once you gain a modicum of self-knowledge, you can express your passion.....It's not about jumping through someone else's hoops. That's drive.

The freedom of Brahman surrounds those whose minds are controlled, who know themselves and who release themselves from selfish desire and anger with sustained effort. (5.24

In the 1960s, the civil rights movement was about getting to know your culture, your history. I know all about my history.

Superstition's not for me. And I'm not much for medicine either. I know my mind and my body better than anyone else.