Quotes About Introspection

No one was around to publicly shame me, but I am perfectly able to shame myself. And worse -- around myself it is not a matter of appearing to be stupid and heartless; instead I confirm to myself that I am definitively one or the other.

I reread books to measure my degree of difference from myself.

ja jos koko ajan ajattelen kuolemaa se ei yllätä minua koskaan

In comparison to what I've suffered from myself, the humiliation and suffering inflicted on me by others vanishes into insignificance.

Mein eigentliches Werk besteht, allen Ernstes, nicht aus Prosa oder Vers: sondern in der Erkenntnis meiner Dummheit.

Noch sind wir in der tiefsten Tiefe nicht korrupt genug, um Schein und Sein, Außen und Innen unwillkürlich bei jeder Auffassung getrennt zu halten, so daß wir, wenn sich uns eine Fassade zeigt, wirklich nur eine Fassade und nicht mehr annehmen würden. Die Wahrnehmung des Menschen ist produktiv und ergänzend.

I am not Hamlet. I don't play a role anymore. My words have nothing more to tell me. My thoughts suck the blood out of the images. My drama is cancelled. Behind me the set is being built. By people my drama doesn't interest, for people it doesn't concern. It doesn't interest me anymore either. I won't play along anymore.

Soll ich, weil's Brauch ist, ein Stück Eisen stecken in das nächste Fleisch oder ins übernächste, mich dran zu halten, weil die Welt sich dreht? Herr, brich mir das Genick im Sturz von einer Bierbank.

Ich legte mich auf den Boden und hörte die Welt ihre Runden drehn im Gleichschritt der Verwesung.

When you no longer have an enemy you find it in the mirror.

I went into the kitchen, took the cognac out of the icebox and had a long drink from it. It didn't help. I had another, that didn't help either.

Ich kniete nieder, bekreuzte mich, und ich hatte einen Augenblick das Gefühl, ein Heuchler zu sein, bis mir einfiel, daß Gott unschuldig war und daß es keine Heuchelei war, vor ihm niederzuknien. S.47

When I am asked how or why I wrote this or that, I always find myself quite embarrassed. I would gladly furnish not merely the questioner, but myself as well, with an exhaustive answer, but can never do so. I cannot recreate the context in its entirety, yet I wish that I could, so that at least the literature I myself make might be made slightly less of a mysterious process than bridge-building and bread-baking.

Every man, either to his terror or consolation, has some sense of religion.

Ieder mens is uiteindelijk altijd alleen, je bent eenzaam als je degene met wie je alleen bent, geen prettig gezelschap vindt

THE CONFESSION OF AN INTERIOR MAN, LEADING TO HUMILITY Turning my gaze at myself and attentively observing the course of my interior life I am convinced, through experience, that I love neither God nor my neighbor, that I have no faith, and that I am full of pride and sensuality. This realization is the result of careful examination of my feelings and actions. I do not love God. For if I loved Him, then I would be constantly thinking of

I live inside my head," he told himself. "So does everyone in a way. So what goes on in there, must count. It must count a lot. I shall always live in my head, wherever I go or whatever I do for the whole of my life. So why shouldn't I be at home in there?

I got home and I thought I should stop leading so aimless an existence. It is harder than you might think to stop leading an existence, & if you can't do that the only thing you can do is try to introduce an element of purposefulness....and though I might have to wait another 30 or 40 years for my body to join the non-sentient things in the world at least in the meantime it would be a less absolutely senseless sentience. OK.

I wish you wouldn't say the first thing that comes into your head, Ludo. There is an obvious difference between someone who works within the technical limitations of his time which are beyond his control and someone who accepts without thinking limitations which are entirely within his own power to set aside.

Well, I don't see any other ones around...

The fact is that 99 out of 100 adults spare themselves the trouble of rational thought 99% of the time (studies have not shown this, I have just invented the statistics so I should not say The fact is, but I would be surprised if the true figures were very different).

It seemed to me that there was a self-interest hidden in the core of all of us, which cooled us when we contemplated any fate which did not touch us directly.

9p.m. My flat. Feel very strange and empty. Is all very well thinking everything is going to be different when you come back but then it is all the same. Suppose I have to make it different. But what am I going to do with my life? I know. Will eat some cheese.

I'm no good at anything. Not men. Not social skills. Not work. Nothing.