Quotes About Introspection

I couldn't have felt more of lonely desolation somehow, had I been robbed of a belief or had missed my destiny in life...

It is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge.

I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude - and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core.

One can't live with one's finger everlastingly on one's pulse.

And this also, said Marlow suddenly, has been one of the dark places of the earth.

I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts.

It made you feel very small, very lost, and yet it was not altogether depressing, that feeling. After all, if you were small, the grimy beetle crawled on - which was just what you wanted it to do.

It was not my strength that wanted nursing, it was my imagination that wanted soothing.

Curiosity being one of the forms of self-revelation, a systematically incurious person remains always partly mysterious.

I don't like work... but I like what is in work - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself, not for others - which no other man can ever know.

This mournful and restless sound was a fit accompaniment to my meditations.

Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understand better the meaning of his stare, that could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness.

If anybody had ever struggled with a soul, I am the man

Whether he knew of this deficiency himself I can't say. I think the knowledge came to him at last--only at the very last. But the wilderness found him out early, and had taken vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude--and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core

I am stupid, am I not? What more can I want? If you ask them who is brave--who is true--who is just--who is it they would trust with their lives?--they would say, Tuan Jim. And yet they can never know the real, real truth....

I don't like work—no man does—but I like what is in the work,—the chance to find yourself. Your own reality—for yourself, not for others—what no other man can ever know.

I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretense, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew.

No influential friend would have served me better. She [the steamboat] had given me a chance to come out a bit-to find out what I could do. No, I don't like work. I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. I don't like work-no man does-but I like what is in the work,-the chance to find yourself. Your own reality-for yourself, not for others-what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and can never tell what it really means.

I don't know the world, nor yet the people in it; I have been too solitary - I am too young to trust my own opinions.

Yes, the sound of water, the voice of the wind - completely foreign to human passions. All the other sounds of this earth brought contamination to the solitude of a soul.

But the truth was that he died from solitude, the enemy known but to a few on this Earth, and whom only the simplest of us are fit to withstand. The brilliant Costaguanaro of the boulevards had died from solititude and want of faith in himself and others.

You, too! it seemed to say, you, too, shall taste of that peace and that unrest in a searching intimacy with your own self - obscure as we were and as supreme in the face of all the winds and all the seas, in an immensity that receives no impress, preserves no memories, and keeps no reckoning of lives.

No method at all,' I murmured after a while. 'Exactly

how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages a man's untrammelled feet may take him into by the way of solitude-utter solitude without a policeman-by the way of silence-utter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbor can be heard whispering of public opinion? These little things make all the great difference. When they are gone you must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness.