Quotes About Reflection

I put on several different outfits. The advantage of not knowing who you are is you can attempt to be all things to all men … or women. My mother saw me always glancing in every mirror, every window; in the gleaming blades of knives. She said, "Jill is vain." She did not know I was looking to see who would be there this time.

I also noticed that as you go to sleep the ideas continue, but they become less and less logically interconnected. You don't notice that they're not logically connected until you ask yourself, "What made me think of that?" and you try to work your way back, and often you can't remember what the hell did make you think of that!

More strictly defined, meditation is thinking about God. Prayer is actually speaking to God, either in words or in silent contemplation.

shun rash judgment. Even if you should see your neighbor doing what is wrong, refuse to pass judgment on him, excuse him instead. Excuse his intention even if you cannot excuse his act, which may be the fruit of ignorance or surprise or chance.27

Teresa of Avila makes the point that it isn't whether the prayers are memorized or not or said out loud or not that determines their value, but whether we pay attention to what we're saying and to whom we're speaking.

When pleasure follows the temptation and could have been avoided but was not, there is always some kind of sin according to the amount of time it is dwelt on and the pleasure taken in it.41

Which of us can live uprightly and perfectly even for one hour, an hour free from fruitless talk and careless work?17

When you have got a new idea, read Aristotle to find out what's wrong with it.

Your best teacher is your last mistake.

Real birthdays are not annual affairs. Real birthdays are the days when we have a new birth.

A Christian man ponders eternity for decades, only to find it's fifteen minutes long.

We haven't been in Afghanistan for ten years. We've been in Afghanistan one year, ten times.

The most precious things in speech are pauses.

I'm thankful that I have lived long enough to become a legend, and I hope I deserve it.

True humility is intelligent self respect which keeps us from thinking too highly or too meanly of ourselves. It makes us modest by reminding us how far we have come short of what we can be.

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use? What is the one end, which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire.

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and new.

You never know how you look through other people's eyes.

Every thought which genius and piety throw into the world alters the world.

In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with his legs.

The walls of rude minds are scrawled all over with facts, with thoughts. They shall one day bring a lantern and read the inscriptions.

A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.

When we have arrived at the question, the answer is already near.