Quotes about Self-reflection

First keep peace with yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.

We may enjoy abundance of peace if we refrain from busying ourselves with the sayings and doings of others, and things which concern not ourselves.

Two things especially lead to great improvement: the will to drag yourself from the things that will naturally harm you and the desire to pursue the good things that you need the most. You should also watch out for those things that irritate you in other people; when you see them in yourself, get rid of them. Turn everything to your advantage.

TURN your attention upon yourself and beware of judging the deeds of other men, for in judging others a man labors vainly, often makes mistakes, and easily sins; whereas, in judging and taking stock of himself he does something that is always profitable.

Hidden pride is a most pernicious vice, the more so since it is not recognized and does not recognize itself. On the outside, it may appear gentle, mild, and even humble. Yet inside, it burns away bitterly. The person who is subject to such pride becomes inordinately elated when he is successful but is disturbed and dejected in the face of adversity or failure.

If thou canst not make thine own self what thou desireth, how shalt thou be able to fashion another to thine own liking. We are ready to see others made perfect, and yet we do not amend our own shortcomings.

The man who suspects his own tediousness is yet to be born.

Live as if you were living for the second time and had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act now.

But what is more to the point is my belief that the habit of writing thus for my own eye only is good practice. It loosens the ligaments. Never mind the misses and the stumbles.

I like reading my own writing. It seems to fit me closer than it did before.

To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others.

It passed through his mind that if he missed this chance of talking to Katharine, he would have to face an enraged ghost, when he was alone in his room again, demanding an explanation of his cowardly indecision. It was better, on the whole, to risk present discomfiture than to waste an evening bandying excuses and constructing impossible scenes with this uncompromising section of himself.