Quotes About Introspection

È difficile comprendere da dove provenga quest'orgoglio dei poeti, se sovente si vergognano che appaia la loro debolezza.

I wanted to be a judge but those whom I called "they" have changed into myself. I was getting rid of my faith so not to be better than me and women who are certain only of their unknowing. And on the roads of my terrestrial homeland turning round with the music of the spheres I thought that all I could do would be done better one day.

There was no castle. You were simply listening to a record. A needle, swaying lightly on a black frozen pond, Led the voices of dead poets out into the sun.

Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year, I felt a door opening in me and I entered the clarity of early morning. One after another my former lives were departing, like ships, together with their sorrow. And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas assigned to my brush came closer, ready now to be described better than they were before.

If you cut a thing up, of course it will smell. Hence, nothing raises such an infernal stink, at last, as human psychology.

That's it! When you come to know men, that's how they are: too sensitive in the wrong place.

Try to find your deepest issue in every confusion, and abide by that.

It's good to be clever but cleverness should be muted and buried in the sand. Nobody should be able to detect it but me.

Some people travel all over the world and see nothing. They go about clad in a thick fog of their own making through which no impressions can penetrate.

When you are young you are too busy with yourself - so Caroline thought - you haven't time for ordinary little things

James thought he might learn from Daniel how to be alone and yet not lonely, how to be self-sufficient. One must not become selfish of course (Daniel was not selfish), but it would be a useful lesson

Why are you so secretive, Penney dear?' asked Barbie. 'Not secretive,' exclaimed Penney. 'It's just that people don't really want to know. My life hasn't been at all interesting, so why should I bore people by telling them about it?

But the next time they met the friendship had always cooled off, and Mrs. Dance had to start all over again. What Mrs. Dance did not realize was that the person in question had been willing enough to listen to the anecdotes and tidbits, but had afterward reflected, consciously or unconsciously, I wonder what Mrs. Dance says to other people about me.

An American travelling acquaintance once said to Peter: "I guess you like to look on at life from a third-floor window." It was such a startling insight into his character that Peter was quite alarmed.

James thought he might learn from Daniel how to be alone and yet not lonely, how to be self-sufficient. One must not become selfish of course (Daniel was not selfish), but it would be a useful lesson to learn how to find happiness inside oneself.

For my part, I prefer my heart to be broken. It is so lovely, dawn-kaleidoscopic within the crack.

Nobody knows you. You don't know yourself. And I, who am half in love with you, What am I in love with? My own imaginings?

I love trying things and discovering how I hate them.

I felt as if I learned a few things. I learned that it's sometimes okay to think like a weenie, so long as you don't act like one—at least not all the time. I learned that it's okay to be wrong, as long as you can admit it and are willing to listen to those who may know better.

My life has been defined by a series of failures.

For me, there's no dichotomy between being shy or a performer, because I think it's more a way of slightly presenting a version of things to the world.

Next time you look in the mirror, close your eyes and ask yourself when you feel like the best version of you. When you open them, act on that.

I don't want to read about the fabricated version of someone's life. I want to know what haunts you, what are you ashamed of, what embarrasses you, what do you wish was different?

Considering the importance of resentment in our lives, and the damage it does, it receives scant attention from psychiatrists and psychologists. Resentment is a great rationalizer: it presents us with selected versions of our own past, so that we do not recognize our own mistakes and avoid the necessity to make painful choices.