Quotes About Introspection

Among the values of meditation is that it carries consciousness down to a deeper level, thus letting man live from his centre, not his surface alone. The result is that the physical sense-reactions do not dominate his outlook wholly, as they do an animal's. Mind begins to rule them. This leads more and more to self-control, self-knowledge, and self-pacification.

Pursue the enquiry 'Who am I?' relentlessly. Analyse your entire personality. Try to find out where the I-thought begins. Go on with your meditations. Keep turning your attention within. One day the wheel of thought will slow down and an intuition will mysteriously arise. Follow that intuition, let your thinking stop, and it will eventually lead you to the goal.

The study of the self will one day prove the master-key to open all philosophical doors, all scientific conundrums, all life's locked problems. Self is the ultimate—it is the first thing we know as babes; it will be the last thing we shall know as sages. The greatest certainty in knowledge comes only in the sphere of self. We

If this interior experience was possible in the twentieth century b.c. it is also possible in the twentieth century a.d. The fundamental nature of man has not changed during the interval.

If the world stands bewildered and confused in the face of its troubles, it is partly because we Westerners have made a God of activity; we have yet to learn how to be, as we have already learnt how to do.

If we search into the innermost part of our self, we come in the end to an utter void where nothing from the outside world can reflect itself, to a divine stillness where no image and no form can be active. This is the essence of our being. This is the true Spirit.

The young John Quincy Adams begins it lifelong habit of keeping a journal with reluctance that he might one day have to read it. He hopes, though, that the flaws in his earlier entries will be balanced by the progress he is able to see.

My countenance in my old-age does injustice to my heart. John Quincy Adams

He had to pause for his usual misgivings.

It indicates where the problem lies for Descartes. It lies in other people.

The awareness of our own strength makes us modest.

The most seductive thing about art is the personality of the artist himself.

The world doesn't understand me and I don't understand the world, that's why I've withdrawn from it.

The landscape thinks itself in me, and I am its consciousness.

It's so fine and yet so terrible to stand in front of a blank canvas.

spills of mire I swallowed inside the tower

In each chapter of this book, I'll be peeling back a very thin layer of that onion (hopefully without the tears).

You want to look in the mirror and stop the behaviour you don't want your kid to emulate.

watching them

Judith realised, with horror, that they were heading over to talk to her, and couldn't find, at a quick glance, anyone else she knew well enough to get into a conversation with. There were, just occasionally, drawbacks to being a nasty old bitch.

Sometimes love creeps upon me, and I suddenly sort of just realise that it's there when i start shaving my legs every day and singing on my bicycle.

To believe in and reach for the beyond was Lizzie's thing, and it suited her and was beautiful for her, an opinion of Autumn's which she didn't think Lizzie had ever quite believed she held. To ask the beyond some serious questions was Autumn's thing.

Sing the melody line you hear in your own head. Remember, you don't owe anybody any explanations, you don't owe your parents any explanations, you don't owe your professors any explanations.

Every time you ask for forgiveness, you recognize that the biggest problems you face in life exist inside of you, not outside of you.