Quotes About Introspection

For the best conversations are with yourself. At least there's no risk of a misunderstanding.

Whose intellect can have had the audacity to judge who is better, and who worse?

Anyone who has ever tried to write a novel knows what an arduous task it is, undoubtedly one of the worst ways of occupying oneself. You have to remain within yourself all the time, in solitary confinement. It's a controlled psychosis, an obsessive paranoia manacled to work, completely lacking in the feather pens and bustles and Venetian masks we would ordinarily associate with it, clothed instead in a butcher's apron and rubber boots, eviscerating knife in hand.

Those of us who think God addresses us by means of external events are wrong, as naive as children. For he whispers directly into our innermost souls.

Are you asleep?' he asked. 'Are you religious?' I had to put the question. 'Yes,' he replied proudly. 'I'm an atheist.

Ka?dy z nas siedzi okrakiem na granicy mi?dzy w?asnym ?wiatem wewn?trznym a ?wiatem zewn?trznym i niebezpiecznie balansuje. To bardzo niewygodna pozycja i niewielu udaje si? utrzyma? równowag?.

The prison is not outside, but inside each of us. Perhaps we simply don't know how to live without it.

checks the sick soggy plaster with his finger, the wet paint leaving a mark on his skin. The stains on the walls make maps of countries he can't recognize, he can't name.

je?eli kto? zaczyna zdanie od s?owa "zawsze", to znaczy, ze straci? kontakt ze ?wiatem, i ?e mówi o sobie

Everything about my own face that seemed to me familiar and obvious had vanished; what remained was a distinctive scattering of dots that symbolized the planets set against the celestial vault. I cannot be someone other than I am. How awful.

Perhaps that's the whole point of prayer—to think to yourself in peace, to want nothing, to ask for nothing, but simply to sort out your own mind. That should be enough.

Sometimes I feel as if we're living inside a tomb, a large, spacious one for lots of people. I looked at the world wreathed in gray Murk, cold and nasty. The prison is not outside, but inside each of us. Perhaps we simply don't know how to live without it.

Izydor couldn't care less about either the Party or going to church. Now he needed time for thinking, remembering Ruta, for reading, for learning German, for writing letters, collecting stamps, staring at his skylight, and gradually, idly sensing the order of the universe.

I teraz zrozumia?, sk?d bra?o si? to poczucie braku, smutek le??cy u podstaw wszystkiego, smutek obecny w ka?dej rzeczy, ka?dym zjawisku, od zawsze - nie mo?na naraz poj?? wszystkiego.

You know what, sometimes it seems to me we're living in a world that

Philosophical concepts—those were what kept him up at night; they belonged to him.

The further north you go, the more people concentrate on themselves, and in some sort of northern madness (no doubt due to the lack of sun) they ascribe to themselves too much. They make themselves responsible for their actions.

I'd started to put on my boots, but that terrible gray morning alarmed me. Sometimes I feel as if we're living inside a tomb, a large, spacious one for lots of people. I looked at the world wreathed in gray Murk, cold and nasty. The prison is not outside, but inside each of us.

A prisão não está no exterior e, sim, no interior de cada um de nós. É possível que não saibamos viver sem ela.

Resztki zostawionej tu osobowo?ci poprzedniego go?cia trzeba zwalczy? swoj? bezosobowo?ci?. Po to jest Przemiana. Resztki odbi? tamtej twarzy w lustrze nie tylko musz? zetrze? szmatk?, ale tak?e zape?ni? lustro moj? bia?o-ró?ow? beztwarzowo?ci?. Tamten zapach zostawiony przez roztargnienie i po?piech musz? zag?uszy? moim bezzapachem.

He looks like a guy who discovered not so long ago that he's not really so different from everybody else - thus attaining, in other words, his own enlightenment. (page 408)

In their heads they perform mute examinations of conscience: Do they have everything, passport, ticket, and papers, have they exchanged money. And where is it they're going. And what for.

What a methodology! It is tacitly assumed that people don't know themselves, but that if you furnish them with questions that are bright enough, they'll be able to figure themselves all out. They pose themselves a question, and they give themselves an answer. And they'll inadvertently reveal to themselves that secret they know nothing of. And that other assumption, which is terribly dangerous—that we are constant, and that our reactions can be predicted.

Ta [Jumal] on meie sees, aga meie oleme tema sees. Ta tegutseb pimesi, aga teab, mida teeb. Ta on nagu leib - igaüks saab kääru ja maitseb seda omal kombel, aga ükski leivakäär ei sisalda tervet leiba.