Quotes About Reflection

With every accident, ask yourself what abilities you have for making a proper use of it. If you see an attractive person, you will find that self-restraint is the ability you have against your desire. If you are in pain, you will find fortitude. If you hear unpleasant language, you will find patience. And thus habituated, the appearances of things will not hurry you away along with them.

If you wish to become proficient in the art of living with wisdom, do you think that you can eat and drink to excess?

Thus Socrates became perfect, improving himself by everything. attending to nothing but reason. And though you are not yet a Socrates, you ought, however, to live as one desirous of becoming a Socrates. 51.

Content yourself with being a lover of wisdom, a seeker of the truth. Return and return again to what is essential and worthy. Do not try to seem wise to others. If you want to live a wise life, live it on your own terms and in your own eyes.

Difficulties are things that show a person what they are.

And, if anyone tells you that you know nothing, and you are not nettled at it, then you be sure that you have begun your business. For sheep don't throw up the grass to show the shepherds how much they have eaten; but, inwardly digesting their food, they outwardly produce wool and milk. Thus, therefore, do you likewise not show theorems to the unlearned, but the actions produced by them after they have been digested.

Maak er van meet af aan een goede gewoonte van tegen elke pijnlijke indruk van buitenaf te zeggen: 'Jij bent niet meer dan een indruk! Jij bent heel anders dan je je voordoet!

Philosophy's purpose is to illuminate the ways our soul has been infected by unsound beliefs, untrained tumultuous desires, and dubious life choices and preferences that are unworthy of us. Self-scrutiny applied with kindness is the main antidote.

Times relieves the foolish from sorrow, but reason relieves the wise

The first task of the person who wishes to live wisely is to free himself or herself from the confines of self-absorption.

To pay homage to beauty is to admire Nature; to admire Nature is to worship God.

Whenever misfortune befalls you, ask yourself how you would react if it were someone else in the same situation.

If you are praised by others, be skeptical of yourself.

I have to die. If it is now, well then I die now; if later, then now I will take my lunch, since the hour for lunch has arrived – and dying I will tend to later.

When the soul cries out, it is a sign that we have arrived at a necessary, mature stage of self-reflection. The secret is not to get stuck there dithering or wringing your hands, but to move forward by resolving to heal yourself.

practice saying to every harsh appearance,1 You are an appearance, and in no manner what you appear to be.

For sheep don't throw up the grass to show the shepherds how much they have eaten; but, inwardly digesting their food, they outwardly produce wool and milk. Thus, therefore, do you likewise not show theorems to the unlearned, but the actions produced by them after they have been digested.

Is the child or wife of another dead? There is no one who would not say, "This is an accident of mortality." But if anyone's own child happens to die, it is immediately, "Alas! how wretched am I!" It should be always remembered how we are affected on hearing the same thing concerning others.

If you are kissing your child or wife, say that it is a human being whom you are kissing, for when the wife or child dies, you will not be disturbed.

Care for your body as needed, but put your main energies and efforts into cultivating your mind.

For sheep don't throw up the grass to show shepherds how much they have eaten; but, inwardly digest their food, they outwardly produce wool and milk.

But if with trembling and lamentation you seek not to fall into that which you avoid, tell me how you are improving.

When you feel burning desire for something that appears pleasureful, you are like a person under a spell. Instead of acting on impulse, take a step back—wait till the enchantment fades and you can see things as they are.

Philosophy is for living, not just learning.