Quotes About Introspection

Every man has a bag hanging before him, in which he puts his neighbour's faults, and another behind him in which he stows his own.

How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to himself! Supreme selfishness is inculcated upon him as his only duty.

The real issue is not whether two and two make four or whether two and two make five, but whether life advances by men who love words or by men who love living.

The heart of a man is like deep water

While the censorious man is most severe in judging others, he is invariably the most ready to repel any animadversions made upon himself...

It is by his freedom that a man knows himself, by his sovereignty over his own life that a man measures himself.

The task of the solitary man is to be even more solitary.

Some of their faults men readily admit, but others not so readily.

Man only blames himself in order that he may be praised.

A man often thinks he rules himself, when all the while he is ruled and managed; and while his understanding directs one design, his affections imperceptibly draw him into another.

There is scarcely any man sufficiently clever to appreciate all the evil he does.

Men sometimes think they hate flattery, but they hate only the manner of flattering.

Silence is the best security to the man who distrusts himself.

He who thinks a great deal is not suited to be a party man: he thinks his way through the party and out the other side too soon.

Say less than the other fellow and listen more than you talk; for when a man's listening he isn't telling on himself and he's flattering the fellow who is.

No man's really any good till he knows how bad he is, or might be.

That man has missed something who has never left a brothel at sunrise feeling like throwing himself into the river out of pure disgust.

Altogether it will be found that a quiet life is characteristic of great men, and that their pleasures have not been of the sort that would look exciting to the outward eye.

Men lie, and they lie to theirselves worst of all.

Some men are more interesting than their books but my book is more interesting than its man.

The wisest man knows he know nothing.

What is the use for a man to have at his disposal a large field of action, if within himself he remains confine to the narrow limits of his individuality.

a great man always knows better than to explain unless an explanation is demanded. To rush into explanations and excuses is always a sign of weakness.

The vanity of man revolts from the serene indifference of the cat.