Quotes About Introspection

One must strain off what was personal and accidental in all these impressions and so reach the pure fluid, the essential oil of truth.

Mert vannak pillanatok, amikor az ember sem gondolkozni, sem érezni nem tud. S ha nem érezünk, sem nem gondolkozunk, akkor?...t?nÅ'dött.

Nothing in the world pleases her so well as solitude. She is happiest alone in the country. She loves rambling alone in her woods. She loves going out by herself at night. She loves hiding from callers. She loves walking among her trees and musing.

Jacob observed Florinda. In her face there seemed to him something horribly brainless- as she sat staring.

C'est pourquoi je hais les miroirs qui me montrent mon vrai visage. Seule, je tombe souvent dans le néant. Je dois poser le pied prudemment sur le rebord du monde, de peur de tomber dans le néant. Je suis forcée de me cogner la tête contre une porte bien dure, pour me contraindre à rentrer dans mon propre corps.»

If truth is not to be found on the shelves of the British Museum, where, I asked myself, picking up a notebook and a pencil, is truth?

How, then, she had asked herself, did one know one thing or another thing about people, sealed as they were? Only like a bee, drawn by some sweetness or sharpness in the air intangible to touch or taste, one haunted the dome-shaped hive, ranged the wastes of the air over the countries of the world alone, and then haunted the hives with their murmurs and their stirrings; the hives which were people.

Mr. Carmichael, who was basking with his yellow cat's eyes ajar, so that like a cat's they seemed to reflect the branches moving or the clouds passing, but to give no inkling of any inner thoughts or emotion whatsoever, if he wanted anything.

To be them would be marvelous, but she was condemned to be herself and could only in this silent enthusiastic way, sitting outside in a garden, applaud the society of humanity from which she was excluded.

He ran his mind over the things they had said, the random, unnecessary things which had eddied round and round and used up all the time, and drawn them so close together and flung them so far apart and left him in the end unsatisfied, ignorant still of what she felt and of what she was like. What was the use of talking, talking, merely talking?

Mai nessuno era parso così triste. Amara e nera, a metà strada, nelle tenebre, nel raggio che portava dal sole all'abisso, forse si formò una lacrima; una lacrima cadde; le acque ondeggiavano, la accolsero e si richiusero quietamente. Mai nessuno era parso così triste.

Tudo parece significar tantas coisas (...)

feeling herself suddenly shrivelled, aged, breastless

For now, she need not think about anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of—to think; well, not even to think. To be silent; to be alone.

sembrava fosse diventato fisicamente quello che loro avevano segretamente custodito nella loro mente – quella solitudine che era per entrambi la verità delle cose.

Quanh Ä'ây, nó nghÄ©, kh?a nh?ng ngón tay c?a nó trong lòng nÆ°á»›c, có má»™t con thuy?n Ä'ã b? ??m, nó th?m thì má»™t cách mÆ¡ màng, ná»­a mê ná»­a t?nh, chúng ta b? m?ng t?ng ng??i, Ä'Æ¡n Ä'á»™c bi?t bao.

Fending for oneself alone on a desert island is really no laughing matter. It is no crying one either

But how describe the world seen without a self?

If you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people.

My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery - always buzzing, humming, soaring, roaring, diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What's this passion for?

Sentia-se muito jovem; e, ao mesmo tempo, indizivelmente velha. Passava como uma navalha através de tudo; e ao mesmo tempo ficava de fora, olhando. Tinha a perpétua sensação, enquanto olhava os carros, de estar fora, longe e sozinha no meio do mar; sempre sentira que era muito, muito perigoso viver, por um só dia que fosse.

She knew nothing; no language, no history; she scarcely read a book now, except memoirs in bed; and yet to her it was absolutely absorbing; all this; the cabs passing; and she would not say of Peter, she would not say of herself, I am this, I am that.

I am the seasons, I think sometimes, January, May, November; the mud, the mist, the dawn. I cannot be tossed about, or float gently, or mix with other people. —Virginia Woolf, The Waves (Harvest Books, January 1, 1978) Originally published October 1931.

Should I seek out some tree? Should I desert these form rooms and libraries, and the broad yellow page in which I read Catullus, for woods and fields? Should I walk under beech trees, or saunter along the river bank, where the trees meet united like lovers in the water? But nature is too vegetable, too vapid. She has only sublimities and vastitudes and water and leaves. I begin to wish for firelight, privacy, and the limbs of one person.