Quotes About Introspection

Talk, talk, talk: the utter and heartbreaking stupidity of words.

I was a sunburnt pagan now. I felt privy to mysteries.

I strongly believe that we are not put on this Earth just to accumulate victories and trophies and avoid failures; but rather to be whittled and sandpapered down until what's left is who we truly are

Everybody has that feeling when they look at a work of art and it's right, that sudden familiarity, a sort of...recognition, as though they were creating it themselves, as though it were being created through them while they look at it or listen to it...

What's any artist, but the dregs of his work? the human shambles that follows it around. What's left of the man when the work's done but a shambles of apology.

Why do you treat me as they do, as though I were exactly what I want to be. Why do we treat people that way?

I really prefer books. No matter how bad a book is, it's unique, but people are all so ordinary. —I think we really like books that make us hate ourselves.

He was continually called upon to explain himself and day by day it had grown harder so that by now there didn't seem to be any words, the right phrases hadn't been coined yet.

He seemed to be drawing inward toward some point at which he would be reduced to the fundamental essence of himself.

Hunkered there in the darkness, he felt before himself a door, madness already raising the hand to knock.

You afoot, the old man said. I knowed your walk the minute I seen you. You always walked like you had the world in your hip pocket. You ain't though, have you? Last time I seen you you was in a fine car. You had big plans.

There is a tonic strength, in the hour of sorrow and affliction, in escaping from the world and society and getting back to the simple duties and interests we have slighted and forgotten. Our world grows smaller, but it grows dearer and greater. Simple things have a new charm for us, and we suddenly realize that we have been renouncing all that is greatest and best, in our pursuit of some phantom.

There are times when a man should be content with what he has but never with what he is

He who thinks all mankind is vile is a pessimist who mistakes his introspection for observation; he looks into his own heart and thinks he sees the world.

The power of self-control is one of the great qualities that differentiates man from the lower animals. He is the only animal capable of a moral struggle or a moral conquest.

Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.

We have sealed ourselves away behind our money, growing inward, generating a seamless universe of self.

Philosophy is for the few.

Pride always wants a little smarting.

There is but one power to which I can yield a heart felt obedience, the decision of my own understanding, the dictate of my own conscience

My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder.

Maybe," he said hesitantly, "maybe there is a beast." [...] "What I mean is, maybe it's only us.

the friend neither sang of grief, nor open his heart to me he muttled in his inquisition and wasted his life and his dreams

Men never cling to their dreams with such tenacity as at the moment when they are losing faith in them, and know it, but do not dare yet to confess it to themselves.