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Quotes about Self-awareness

If lying and fabrication are psychologically harmful even in ordinary relations with other men (a sphere where a certain amount of falsification is not uncommon) all falsity is disastrous in any relation with the ground of our own being
- Thomas Merton
So much depends on our idea of God! Yet no idea of Him, however pure and perfect, is adequate to express Him as He really is. Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him. We
- Thomas Merton
It is when we insist most firmly on everyone else being "reasonable" that we become, ourselves, unreasonable.
- Thomas Merton
We only know Him in so far as we are known by Him, and our contemplation of Him is a participation in His contemplation of Himself.
- Thomas Merton
In humility is the greatest freedom. As soon as you begin to take yourself seriously and imagine that your virtues are important because they are yours, you become the prisoner of your own vanity and even your best works will blind and deceive you. Then, in order to defend yourself, you will begin to see sins and faults everywhere in the actions of other[s].
- Thomas Merton
we too easily assume that we are our real selves, and that our choices are really the ones we want to make when, in fact, our acts of free choice are (though morally imputable, no doubt) largely dictated by psychological compulsions, flowing from our inordinate ideas of our own importance.
- Thomas Merton
When a proud man thinks he is humble his case is hopeless.
- Thomas Merton
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actuallly doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
- Thomas Merton
genuine strength arises only in a condition of vulnerability. The flagrant display and self-serving use of power are an admission of deep incapacity.
- Thomas Merton
It is not humility to insist on being someone that you are not. It is as much as saying that you know better than God who you are and who you ought to be. How do you expect to arrive at the end of your own journey if you take the road to another mans city? How do you expect to reach your own perfection by leading somebody else's life?
- Thomas Merton
Identity is destiny. If you allow your life to be defined by lies or by people who do not truly know who God created you to be, then you will be robbed of both your true identity and your full destiny. Our identity must come from and be found in the Lord.
- Kathie Lee Gifford
Any life lived attentively is disillusioning as it forces us to know us as we are.
- Kathleen Norris