Quotes About Reflection

Succeeding is not really a life experience that does that much good. Failing is a much more sobering and enlightening experience.

Once when he was slapping me back and forth, one hand holding my neck, the other whipping across my cheeks, I caught a glimpse of a picture of him on the mantel – ten years old in a Cub Scout uniform. He looked so proud; his grin was so sweet. Freckles, bright eyes, combed hair still wet. Adorable. I wanted to ask him; how did you grow up to be who you are? Who taught you to hit?

All the things he saw made him feel his head would burst. He tried to store them in his memory so that he would be able to accurately recount them to his own people. But as he remembered the events that led him to this place, he realized he might never see them again.

If you have never wept bitter tears because a wonderful story has come to an end and you must take your leave of the characters with whom you have shared so many adventures, whom you have loved and admired, for whom you have hoped and feared, and without whose company life seems empty and meaningless. If such things have not been part of your own experience, you probably won't understand what Bastian did next.

What, then, can we do? We must return to the moral and spiritual foundations of our country and grapple with the consequences of our original sin.

Schools often use Black students in this way in order to achieve racial reckoning on the cheap. They avoid bringing in teachers—or, in other settings, corporations avoid bringing in experts—to address gaps, holes, and areas of ignorance. And the burden for teaching falls on the few Black or Brown folk in the room or office, instead of being assumed by the white folk in those arenas in need of the reflection and change. It is all so utterly exhausting.

The writer's gift can make us see ourselves and our morals differently than our reality suggests.

What I ask my white students to do, and what I ask of you, my dear friends, is to try, the best you can, to surrender your innocence, to reject the willful denial of history and to live fully in our complicated present with all of the discomfort it brings. Many

It is right that we should stand by and act on our principles; but not right to hold them in obstinate blindness, or retain them when proved to be erroneous.

Shall we educate ourselves in what is known, and then casting away all we have acquired, turn to ignorance for aid to guide us among the unknown?

Do not refer to your toy-books, and say you have seen that before. Answer me rather, if I ask you, have you understood it before?

I am no poet, but if you think for yourselves, as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your minds.

We feel a lot of pressure about looking silly or appearing weak, whatever that means, or being a failure. You have to keep in your head: what's the worst that can happen?

Carl Jung said that only an introvert could see "the unfathomable stupidity of man

Modern life seems set up so that we can avoid loneliness at all costs, but maybe it's worthwhile to face it occasionally. The further we push aloneness away, the less are we able to cope with it, and the more terrifying it gets.

He was confounded by the idea that passing the prime of your life in a cubicle, spending hours a day at a computer, in exchange for money, was considered acceptable, but relaxing in a tent in the woods was disturbed. Observing the trees was indolent; cutting them down was enterprising. What did Knight do for a living? He lived for a living. Knight

That silence intimidates puzzles me. Silence is to me normal, comfortable." Later he added, "I will admit to feeling a little contempt for those who can't keep quiet.

Silence, it appears, is not the opposite of sound. It is another world altogether, literally offering a deeper level of thought, a journey to the bedrock of the self.

The life inside a book always felt welcoming to Knight. It pressed no demands on him, while the world of human interactions was so complex.

Two of life's greatest pleasures, by my reckoning, are camping and reading—most gloriously, both at once.

If you like solitude, you're never alone.

Socrates may have concluded that his most valuable possession was his leisure. "Beware the barrenness of a busy life" is a quote commonly attributed to him.

Modern life seems set up so that we can avoid loneliness at all costs, but maybe it's worthwhile to face it occasionally. The further we push aloneness away, the less we are able to cope with it, and the more terrifying it gets. Some philosophers believe that loneliness is the only true feeling there is.

life isn't about searching endlessly to find what's missing; it's about learning to live with the missing parts.