Quotes About Introspection

We may know ourselves, and yet even with all the efforts we make, we do not know ourselves. We know our fellowman, and yet we do not know him, because we are not a thing, and our fellowman is not a thing. The further we reach into the depths of our being, on someone else's being, the more the goal of knowledge eludes us.

You do many things at once; you read, listen to the radio, talk, smoke, eat, drink. You are the consumer with the open mouth, eager and ready to swallow everything—pictures, liquor, knowledge. This lack of concentration is clearly shown in our difficulty in being alone with ourselves. To sit still, without talking, smoking, reading, drinking, is impossible for most people. They become nervous and fidgety, and must do something with their mouth or their hands.

I cannot know who I am, because I don't know which part of me is not me.

People are afraid to concentrate because they are afraid of losing themselves if they are too absorbed in another person, in an idea, in an event. The less strong their self, the greater the fear of losing themselves in the act of concentration on the non-self.

It is desirable to avoid trivial and evil company altogether—unless one can assert oneself fully, and thus make the other doubt his own position.

Let your deeds be judged, and from your deeds your real intentions, but know that a free person owes an explanation only to himself—to his reason and his conscience—and to the few who may have a justified claim for explanation.

looking for the next thing to do or the newest gadget to use is only a means of protecting oneself from being close to oneself or to another person.

They were more free, but they were more alone.

If I am nothing but what I believe I am supposed to be—who am I?

A free person owes an explanation only to himself, to his reason and his conscious, and to the few who may have a justified claim for explanation.

Faith, in the having mode, is a crutch for those who want to be certain, those who want an answer to life without daring to search for it themselves.

They have their big, ever-changing egos, but none has a self, a core, a sense of identity.

Some people, perhaps those with more dignity and less rage gnawing at the roots of their being, are nicer as failures, For me, it was like descending a deep pit that had no bottom

When you are small, if you reach out, and nobody takes your hand, you stop reaching out, and reach inside, instead.

Somehow her later years had become a mirror of her lonely childhood.

When you're small, if you reach out, and nobody takes your hand, you stop reaching out, and reach inside, instead.

We think we know people. We think that what we see is all there is. We rarely ask ourselves what goes on behind the curtain. We jump to conclusions. And we take everything very personally.

Writers know that if you want to portray a person succinctly, tellingly, you describe the way he eats. Food is the royal road to the unconscious.

Sometimes you only get one chance at something. Sometimes that's a good thing too. When that door slams shut on the thing you couldn't live without, what happens next is when the read education begins. You have to figure out how to make some peace with it all, how to have an interior life you can live with. Digging down deep is really never a bad thing in the end, but it will flat-out kick your ass while it's happening.

Instead of going back and looking at the question, people tinker with the solution, trying to make it fit."-Claude Legrande..."The consequences of failing to do that [in our personal lives] are the same as those facing businesses - even more dire, perhaps, because what's being squandered isn't just the potential for profits. It's the potential for happiness. We miss opportunities to innovate and to make positive changes in our lives when we aren't willing to question ourselves.

I have often sat in that chair behind my desk and wondered how you would look lying naked here on this sofa. It was a form of self-inflicted torture." "Good heavens

We all get stuck. We all lose ourselves a little bit in a fantasy or in our jobs and forget how we feel about other things. It's really important to check yourself, to spend some time alone.

I think I've always had a certain amount of skepticism of this whole 'shut up and smile' theory. I haven't ever swallowed that pill so easily, although I tried.

How can you go on living when you're now being lived in? When you've been invaded?