Quotes About Introspection

I used to believe everything I read, but now I'm steppin' out.

The reason to read Blake and Dickinson and Freud and Dickens is not to become more cultivated or more articulate... The best reason to read them is to see if they may know you better than you know yourself. You may find your own suppressed and rejected thoughts flowing back to you with an "alienated majesty

What Proust is describing is an act of self-discovery on the part of his reader. Immersing herself in Proust, the reader may encounter aspects of herself that, while they have perhaps been in existence for a long time, have remained unnamed, undescribed, and therefore in a certain sense unknown. One might say that the reader learns the language of herself

People who have taught themselves how to live — what to be, what to do — from reading great works will not be overly susceptible to the culture industry's latest wares. They'll be able to sample them, or turn completely away—they'll have better things on their minds.

The best beginning reads is often the one with the wherewithal to admit that, living in the midst of what appears to be a confident, energetic culture, he among all the rest is lost.

The reader learns the language of herself; she is humanly enhanced, enlarging the previously constricting circle that made up the border of what she's been... her consciousness has been expanded.

We need to learn not simply to read books but to allow ourselves to be read by them.

We are what we think, having become what we thought.

The only way to find out where I was was to get out of the way and let myself happen.

In order to change conditions outside ourselves, whether they concern the environment or relations with others, we must first change within ourselves.

A recently deceased American Zen master and navy veteran, John Daido Loori, used to say that those who think Buddhism is just about stillness end up sitting very silently up to their necks in their own shit.

Can you grasp your right fist with your right hand? Obviously not -- your hand can't grasp itself. But there's another, less obvious reason why you can't do it: As soon as you open your right hand to grasp something, you no longer have a right fist.

Okay, so, sometimes in life, I can be a score-keeper - someone who keeps track of what he gives and what he gets in return. An annoying quality, to say the least, and I'm sure my wife has your sympathy, but it's made me highly attuned to when and where credit is due.

Repeated and prolonged proximity to moribund logging communities set off my misanthropy.

Good literature is a mirror through which we see ourselves more clearly.

shakes alone." Nick

After several minutes of utterly dull conversation I began to think of her not as a woman but as a human, then not as a human but as an animal, then not as an animal but as a source of high-grade protein.

If someone can't or won't listen to you, get him to listen to himself.

It's hard to realize that you might be wrong when you think you're right—especially when your logic, analysis, emotions, experience, and preparation all point toward your conclusion. As Mark Twain said, "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

Next time you have a quiet moment, ask yourself this question: "What's holding you back from accomplishing your goals, and how frustrating is that for you?

The next time you catch yourself running on that transactional hamster wheel, try something different. Stop what you're doing, and sit down. Take a breath. And say to yourself: "What would I like to be doing with my life this time next year?" or "What do I need more or less of in my life right now?" or "If my kids looked at me 20 years from now, what would make them proud of me?

Then, when you find yourself starting down the rocky road to self-defeat, pause, reflect, and

Step 1: Increase physical awareness. Impulses begin as physical sensations. Stop and notice what you feel and where you feel it. In your stomach? Head? Neck? Chest? Step 2: Increase emotional awareness. Try to connect the physical sensation to an emotion. Why do you feel tense? What do you feel angry about? What are you afraid of?

Both partners describe one of their own character flaws. Humility resolves self-righteousness.