Quotes About Introspection

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply myself to them, if they will not apply themselves to me.

A wise man never loses anything if he have himself.

Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul.

Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.

There is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thoughts under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.

I want to be seen here in my simple, natural, ordinary fashion, without straining or artifice; for it is myself that I portray… I am myself the matter of my book.

Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.

We must reserve a back shop all our own, entirely free, in which to establish our real liberty and our principal retreat and solitude.

When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep. Nay, and when I walk alone in a beautiful Orchard, if my Thoughts are some part of the Time taken up with strange Occurrences, I some part of the Time call them back again to my Walk, or to the Orchard, to the Sweetness of the Solitude, and to my self.

There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others.

Everyone recognizes me in my book, and my book in me.

This notion [skepticism] is more clearly understood by asking "What do I know?"

My trade and art is to live.

A man of understanding has lost nothing, if he has himself.

Meditation is a rich and powerful method of study for anyone who knows how to examine his mind.

The finest thing in the world is knowing how to belong to oneself.

Even on the highest throne in the world, we are still sitting on our ass.

When all is summed up, a man never speaks of himself without loss; his accusations of himself are always believed; his praises never.

I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.

If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.

I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind.

Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.

I find I am much prouder of the victory I obtain over myself, when, in the very ardor of dispute, I make myself submit to my adversary's force of reason, than I am pleased with the victory I obtain over him through his weakness.

Off I go, rummaging about in books for sayings which please me.