Quotes About Introspection

I am one who has been acquainted with the night

A poem is never a put-up job, so to speak. It begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is never a thought to begin with.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense.

What are we? Young or new? We must be something.

Revelation WE make ourselves a place apart Behind light words that tease and flout, But oh, the agitated heart Till someone find us really out. 'Tis pity if the case require (Or so we say) that in the end We speak the literal to inspire The understanding of a friend. But so with all, from babes that play At hide-and-seek to God afar, So all who hide too well away Must speak and tell us where they are

I had A Lover's Quarrel With The World.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

The farm is a base of operations–a stronghold. You can withdraw into yourself there. Solitude for reflection is an essential ingredient in self-development. I think a person has to be withdrawn into himself to gather inspiration so that he is somebody when he comes out again among folks–when he "comes to market' with himself. He learns that he's got to be almost wastefully alone.

The tree the tempest with a crash of wood Throws down in front of us is not to bar Our passage to our journey's end for good, But just to ask us who we think we are

Something was withheld . . . We found it was ourselves.

Who would you be, I wonder, by those marks If I had moths to friend as I have flowers?

I have been one acquainted with the night.

Life is too much like a pathless wood Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs Broken across it, and one eye is weeping From a twig's having lashed across it open.

There I elected to demur Beneath a low-slung juniper That like a blanket to my chin Kept some dew out and some heat in, Yet left me freely face to face All night with universal space.

I make a virtue of my suffering From nearly everything that goes on round me. In other words, I know wherever I am, Being the creature of literature I am, I shall not lack for pain to keep me awake.

I may as well confess myself the author Of several books against the world in general.

I had not taken the first step in knowledge; I had not learned to let go with the hands, As still I have not learned to with the heart. And have no wish to with the heart—nor need. That I can see. The mind—is not the heart. I may yet live, as I know others live, To wish in vain to let go with the mind— Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me That I need learn to let go with the heart.

I often say that I don't worry about the meaning of life--I can't handle that big stuff. What concerns me is the meaning in life--day by day, hour by hour, while I'm doing whatever it is that I do. What counts is not what I do, but how I think about myself while I'm doing it.

To ponder is not to brood or grieve or even meditate. It is to wonder at a deep level.

Don't Believe Everything You Think!

I may be wrong

People requested help with the rituals of solitude, such as meditation, prayer, and contemplation.

We are as different from one another on the inside of our heads as we appear to be different from one another on the outside of our heads.

We are the only creatures that both laugh and weep. I think it's because we are the only creatures that see the difference between the way things are and the way they might be. Tears bring relief. Laughter brings release.