Quotes About Introspection

There were days when you peered into yourself, into the secret places of your heart, and what you saw there made you faint with horror. And then, next day, you didn't know what to make of it,you couldn't interpret the horror you had glimpsed the day before. Yes, you know what evil costs.

He walked on in silence, the solitary sound of his footsteps echoing in his head, as in a deserted street, at dawn. His solitude was so complete, beneath a lovely sky as mellow and serene as a good conscience, amid that busy throng, that he was amazed at his own existence; he must be somebody else's nightmare, and whoever it was would certainly awaken soon.

You're lucky. I'm always conscious of myself —in my mind. Painfully conscious.

I am not asking for sensational revelations, but I would like to sense the meaning of that minute, to feel it's urgency...

I don't even bother looking for words. It flows in me, more or less quickly. I fix nothing, I let it go. Through the lack of attaching myself to words, my thoughts remain nebulous most of the time. They sketch vague, pleasant shapes and then are swallowed up: I forget them almost immediately.

J'ai commencé ma vie comme je la finirai sans doute : au milieu des livres.

Your scare me rather. My reflection in the glass never did that; of course, I knew it so well. Like something I had tamed...I'm going to smile, and my smile will sink down into your pupils, and heaven knows what it will become.

It's just what people do when they're getting old, when they're sick of themselves and their life; they think of money and take care of themselves.

I've lived the life of a man without teeth, he thought about it. A life of a man without teeth. I've never bitten, I've been waiting, keeping myself for later - and now I've just ascertained that I don't have teeth anymore.

I am alone in this white, garden-rimmed street. Alone and free. But this freedom is rather like death.

Si seulement je pouvais m'arrêter de penser, ça irait déjà mieux. Les pensées, c'est ce qu'il y a de plus fade. Plus fade encore que de la chair. Ça s'étire à n'en plus finir et ça laisse un drôle de goût. Et puis il y a les mots, au-dedans des pensées, les mots inachevés, les ébauches de phrases qui reviennent tout le temps.

Je suis seul au milieu de ces voix joyeuses et raisonnables. Tous ces types passent leur temps à s'expliquer, à reconnaître avec bonheur qu'ils sont du même avis. Quelle importance ils attachent, mon Dieu, à penser tous ensemble les mêmes choses.

So that is what hell is. I would never have believed it. You remember: the fire and brimstone, the torture. Ah! the farce. There is no need for torture: hell is other people.

You see, I'm fond of teasing, it's a second nature with me—and I'm used to teasing myself. Plaguing myself, if you prefer; I don't tease nicely.

I must wash myself clean with abstract thoughts, transparent as water.

Reflection poisons desire.

INEZ: What's the matter? ESTELLE: I feel so queer. Don't you ever get taken that way? When I can't see myself I begin to wonder if I really and truly exist. I pat myself just to make sure, but it doesn't help much.

That's what I must avoid: I mustn't put strangeness where there's nothing. I think that is the danger of keeping a diary: you exaggerate everything, you are on the look-out, and you continually stretch the truth.

But you looked much more like a fellow who had just realised that he has been living on ideas that don't pay.

I have been much too calm these past three years. I can receive nothing more from these tragic solitudes than a little empty purity.

Je pense, lui dis-je, que nous voilà, tous tant que nous sommes, à manger et à boire pour conserver notre précieuse existence et qu'il n'y a rien, rien, aucune raison d'exister… L'autodidacte répondit que la vie a un sens si on veut bien lui en donner un. Il faut d'abord agir, se jeter dans une entreprise. Il y a un but, Monsieur, il y a un but… il y a les hommes.

I shall never sleep again. But then—how shall I endure my own company?

Her smiles, her mimicries, all the words she uttered were addressed to herself through him.

Je ne suis rien que le regard qui te voit, que cette pensée incolore qui te pense.