Quotes About Introspection

He never labored so hard to learn a language as he did to hold his tongue, and it affected him for life. The habit of reticence — of talking without meaning — is never effaced.

Of all studies, the one he would rather have avoided was that of his own mind. He knew no tragedy so heartrending as introspection.

He made a careful rehearsal of some of their bits of talk--why had she said this? what had she meant by that? why had she done the other? He dwelt on these matters with an absorbed speculation, and with a young man of Ogden's temperament speculation was but the first step on the way to love.

Sometimes when you look back on a situation, you realize it wasn't all you thought it was. A beautiful girl walked into your life. You fell in love. Or did you Maybe it was only a childish infatuation, or maybe just a brief moment of vanity.

Sumner's mind had reached the calm of water which receives and reflects images without absorbing them; it contained nothing but itself.

The gradual change that came over the eleven chosen disciples was not the result of introspection, but of living with their Master, talking to Him, seeing Him work and pray, bringing Him their difficulties, pondering the words of truth that came as the answer to their thoughts. Their desires grew divine because they were "lift upward."

Public opinion is a weak tyrant, compared with our private opinion - what a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates his fate

I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived.

It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.

Associate reverently, as much as you can, with your loftiest thoughts.

I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day without acquiring some rust, and when sometimes I have stolen forth for a walk at the eleventh hour of four o'clock in the afternoon, too late to redeem the day, when the shades of night were already beginning to be mingled with the daylight, have felt as if I had committed some sin to be atoned for.

I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends.... Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.

With all your science - can you tell how it is, and whence it is, that light comes into the soul?

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.

The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals.

What are the earth and all its interests beside the deep surmise which pierces and scatters them?

Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg by the side of which more will be laid.

However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do want society.

Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought. Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by the ice.

We falsely attribute to men a determined character - putting together all their yesterdays - and averaging them - we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to support - it is worse than a large family - he is the silent poor indeed.

What a man thinks of himself that is what determines, or rather indicates his fate.

Whatever sentence will bear to be read twice, we may be sure was thought twice.