Quotes About Introspection

Shall any man hate me? That will be his affair. But I will be mild and benevolent toward every man, and ready to show even him his mistake, not reproachfully, nor yet as making a display of my endurance, but nobly and honestly.

The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?

If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you.

The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.

Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.

Search men's governing principles, and consider the wise, what they shun and what they cleave to.

Blot out vain pomp; check impulse; quench appetite; keep reason under its own control.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people's actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first upon yourself.

Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there.

The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

Waste no more time talking about great souls and how they should be. Become one yourself!

People don't change that much. Don't waste time trying to put in what was left out. Try to draw out what was left in. That is hard enough.

Art does many things, but for me where art is at its best is in providing a window into the way another mind works.

It doesn't matter how the paint is put on,' he wrote in describing his method, 'as long as something is said. Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.

You at this time can only be destroyed by yourselves, from within and not from without. You have reached the point where the victory is to be won from within and can only be lost from within.

Let no voice but your own speak to you from the depths. Let no influence but your own raise you in time of peace and time of war. Hear all, but attend only that which concerns you.

In doing nothing men learn to do evil.

I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right.