Quotes About Introspection

The instrument of leadership is the self, and mastery of the art of leadership comes from mastery of the self.

WHO ARE YOU?" This is the first question your constituents want you to answer for them. Your leadership journey begins when you set out to find the answer and are able to express it.

Men who are cut off, careful, and closed are also lonely and just as vulnerable in a different way as their wives alone in a dark alley after midnight.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

When we experience God for who He really is, we suddenly see ourselves for who we are.

A quality man examines his heart, exposing the fears that generate the lies that lead to sin.

You would think that the more a man knows and loves God, the deeper he gets into understanding His Word, and the further he progresses in personal holiness, the better he would be at being a watchful man, but that is sadly not the case.

Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self. —Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Discernment, says Lonsdale, is about the "spiritual interpretation and evaluation of feelings, and particularly with the direction in which we are moved by them.

Looking at our personal relationships can help us get our prayer life in order.

mine what we know about human relationships for ways to understand our relationship with God.

examen." Essentially a review of the day, it helps you see where God is active in your daily life.

Twice a day, or at least once, make your particular examens. Be careful never to omit them. So live as to make more account of your own good conscience than you do of those of others; for he who is not good in regard to himself, how can he be good in regard to others?

Merton said many times that when it comes to spirituality, experience is the place to start.

There I was, "striving to be something I would never want to be.

We are gradually losing the art of silence. Of walking down the street lost in our own thoughts. Of closing the door to our rooms and being quiet. Of sitting on a park bench and just thinking. We may fear silence because we fear what we might hear from the deepest parts of ourselves. We may be afraid to hear that "still small" voice. What might it say? Might it ask us to change?

Sometimes, when we feel the greatest need to be alone, it's the moment we should most welcome the company of others.

The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think.

This novel business is an awful business. Why the hell did I ever get mixed up in it?

The rare few, who, early in life, have rid themselves of the friendship of the many.

Above all, the Stoics sought wisdom, a condition that I myself hope to achieve after I stop wrecking and burning things.

Some people confess in the flesh, others on paper.

Mankind's moral sense is not a strong beacon light, radiating outward to illuminate in sharp outline all that it touches. It is, rather, a small candle flame, casting vague and multiple shadows, flickering and sputtering in the strong winds of power and passion, greed and ideology. But brought close to the heart and cupped in one's hands, it dispels the darkness and warms the soul.

As anyone who has ever read a used book knows, nothing exposes readers to quite such a high degree of nakedness as the underlinings and marginalia they live behind...