Quotes About Introspection

O Raghava, be outwardly active but inwardly inactive, outwardly a doer but inwardly a non-doer, and thus play your part in the world.

Association with the wise, abandonment of latent impressions, self-enquiry, control of breathing — these are the means of conquering the mind.

The tragic element in modern man, not ignore the meaning of his life, but it bothers him less and less.

You are Tadeusz Radecki? I am in the right place?' 'I know who I am. What I want to know is who you are.

Mi innervosisco facilmente quando penso troppo, ma non voglio smettere di pensare. La mia testa è il solo posto dove non un soldato di Tsahal, non un tizio di Hamas, né mio padre né mia madre possono entrare. La mia testa è casa mia, l'unica casa che ho, troppo piccola per tutto quello che ci devo mettere ed è per questo che mi sono messo a scrivere.

What was so wrong with us? We were young, healthy, matched in every way. Live and be happy. No, I had to show my strength, be moody. What a fool. And I didn't understand that I was a fool; after all, I do have some brains, but I couldn't stop myself.

And our conscience is getting old, its an old woman, and no one looks at it anymore.

But how can you keep watch on a woman? A woman can fool herself, not to mention others.

Don't listen to people--listen to yourself.

Of course, you could live without asking questions, just live the way life comes, float with the current, but, I'm crazy that way: I must know why and wherefore, dig down to the truth myself. That's why I'm a man.

No, even though everyone had one set of hands and feet, there was more than one person inside--there were several, each pulling a different way, tearing you apart until they led you to your grave And yet we think that another's soul is impenetrable--as though we know our own at least a little.

If a man lives without inner struggle, if everything happens in him without opposition, if he goes wherever he is drawn or wherever the wind blows, he will remain such as he is. But if a struggle begins in him, and particularly if there is a definite line in this struggle, then, gradually, permanent traits begin to form themselves, he begins to 'crystallise'…Crystallisation is possible on any foundations.

One need not fear the devil, but rather the perverse tendencies in oneself!

In an ordinary portrait the woman comes forward to meet whoever looks at her, and tells her own story. But here, the real woman lurks a hundred leagues behind the equivocal gaze, entirely closed to herself, a plant rooted yet in the mysterious soil out of which it has come.

True, I played, fought and studied with other children, but always I stood apart within. … A cosmic loneliness was my shadow.

In Tibet, the word for meditation is gom, which means "to become familiar with one's self.

I remember once asking my therapist why it is always me who has to do the changing. She replied, "If you're happy with the situation, don't do anything; if you're not, you'll have to do something about it.

I would rather live with unanswered questions than unquestioned answers,

It is a grave mistake to think that the Inquisition or the Southern lynchings or the Rwandan genocide were committed by people who were fundamentally different from us. Soul-scarred Vietnam veterans have tried repeatedly to tell us: You don't know what you're capable of until you are there. Only when all of us recognize our own potential for evil, do we have some power to guard against it.

It is difficult to describe the peace that comes with giving yourself permission to know what you know. To have hard, complicated realities staring at you and be able to raise your head and look back at them with a steady gaze, scared maybe, grieved perhaps, but straight on and unwavering

I'm addicted to silence and privacy; I wallow in it.

Sometimes there's comfort in wrapping oneself in aloneness, witnessing your own pain.

There is something in me in the deepest part of me, at the center of me, something infinitely barren that doesn't weep when I weep that doesn't laugh when I laugh but seems to say eternally I'm here, indifferent to everything.

Never forget that when you point the finger at someone, three of your own fingers are pointing back at you...