Quotes About Introspection

What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

Only from within himself can a person know the depth of the world: in him lie the interconnections of the world.

In order to depict a man one must understand him, and to understand him one must be like him; in order to portray his psychological activities one must be able to reproduce them in oneself. To understand a man one must have his nature in oneself.

No one can understand himself, for to do that he would have to get outside himself; the subject of the knowing and willing activity would have to become its own object.

I have know a thousand scamps; but I never met one who considered himself so. Self-knowledge isn't so common.

Men are always optimists when they look inwards, and pessimists when they look around them.

Where grave philosophers have watched the setting sun die out of the sky, as the glories of their own youth have died away unvalued, till lost for ever. Where ascetic reading-men have mooned along its banks blind to all the loveliness of the water-lily below, or the clouds above, as they took their constitutional and pondered their prize essay.

Once again alone, my grief was unrestrained; so much so that the woman of the house came and hammered at the door and swore at me for a "dratted yelping beast," which only made my cries the louder. As several hours went on, however, and my solitude remained unbroken, I cried myself so hoarse that I was unable to emit any sort of sound at last; and thought I might as well vary my imprisonment by looking out of the casement.

When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too. Anne Morrow Lindberg

One good way to inventory ourselves is to ask ourselves questions about specific character traits. Then we examine in writing the ways that we've exhibited these characteristics in our lives. For instance, we might ask ourselves if we have been prideful. Have arrogance and false pride characterized our behavior? If so, we list them in our inventory. Then, we illustrate the characteristic of pride by listing examples of how pride has caused us to act.

Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth. Ralph Waldo Emerson

I see and approve better things, but follow worse.

He who lives well, lives hidden.

We two are to ourselves a crowd.

True understanding is unattainable without both love and detachment,

Interior is anterior.

Meditation is the soul's perspective glass.

You are speakin' low like me," he answered. "But we have no dream we can wake from

I ain't sure whether you're crazy or not," said he to the man in the lookin-glass. "I ain't never been sure.

Ozzy, why do you drink so much? What's the point?' The right answer to that question was: because I'm an alcoholic; because I have an addictive personality; because whatever I do, I do it addictively. But I didn't know any of that back then.

All rehab can do is tell you what's wrong with you and then suggest ways for you to get better.

Even now, I have a lot of trouble understanding why Sharon stayed – or why she married me in the first place, come to think of it. I mean, she was actually afraid of me half the time. And the truth was I was afraid of me, too. Afraid of what I'd do to myself or, even worse, to someone else.

You never really know what's going on inside Tony Iommi's head. He's the total opposite of me, in other words: no one's ever in any doubt about what's going on in the pile of old jelly inside my thick skull.

The fact that I ever raised my hand against a woman disgusts me. It was a f**king atrocious, unforgivable way to behave, and there's no excuse for it, ever. And like I said before, it's something I'll take to the grave with me.