c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
In one level, Om is the self-organizing power of the universe and self-awareness is the process to access that power.
— Amit Ray, Meditation: Insights and Inspirations
In his moments of pride he had said all those things, half in fun and half in earnest, and he began to wonder how he could have been so many kinds of a fool for so long without realising it.
— Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Sport of the Gods
It doesn't matter who came to talk to me,' he said (Barack Obama). He went on to say that I needed to realize the power of my words. I could not send emails like that because they - I am paraphrasing - freak everyone out.Developing self-awareness is a lifelong process; you don't just wake up one day and have all you need. So even though I'd spend the last few months demonstrating that I was cable and knew what I was doing, this was something of a revelation. When the president of the United States tells you your words are powerful, it can be pretty shocking. I honestly didn't think anyone would give a shit if I sent a snippy email.It was good advice, specifically to me at the time but generally as it relates to any kind of replying-all in life: Think about how what you say could affect people, from the top down. It was also a wake-up call for me about my state of mind: I didn't know why (yet) - though I'm sure I did, deep down - but my temper was getting worse, and my fuse shorter and shorter.
— Alyssa Mastromonaco, Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House
Saying it's hard being straight is like complaining to the poor that it's difficult being wealthy.
— DaShanne Stokes
It's not always a question of you changing your mind. I think very often your mind changes you. You suddenly realise that without having intended to think something, or while intending to think something, you can't quite do it anymore. It doesn't mean the same thing it used to. And you wonder why. And if you want to take an honest exploration of why that is, it may lead you in some alarming but fruitful directions. That's actually why I called this book Hitch-22, because it's a minor-key echo of the great Joe Heller paradox; but in a lifetime that's had quite a lot of commitment in it, and allegiance, I've now reached a point where I'm mainly associated with a group of people who I suppose could be described as adamant for skepticism, or resolve for uncertainty. And this pits us against the people who are completely sure they have all the answers - or modern totalitarians. The ones who have all the information they need, and who indeed have the truth as it's been revealed to them - they're already qualified to tell us what to do. Opposition to that lot is the cause of my life, always has been, in a way, and opposition to all forms of totalitarianism, not just as a system of thought but in the mind.
— Christopher Hitchens
In a deserted stretch of the Karadj highway Munis had come face-to-face with unbridled lust, although she knew what lust was before being touched by it. The problem was that she had an unbounded awareness of things, an awareness that instilled undue caution in her, making her fearful that action would lead to ignominy, humiliation. This created in her a desire to be ordinary, average. Yet she did not truly know what it meant to be ordinary. She did not know that it meant not loving an earthworm, not genuflecting at the altar of withered leaves, not standing in prayer at the call of a lark, not climbing a mountain to see the sunrise, not staying awake all night to gaze at the Ursa Major. She did not differentiate between earth and gravel, but she distinguished the earth from the sky. She had not seen the skies of the earth, but she knew there were earths of the sky. She saw herself in an inevitable process of stagnation. She was already partially rotten within."What can I do with this mass of trivial knowledge?" she wondered aloud. "How can I cut through it?
— Shahrnush Parsipur, Women Without Men: A Novel of Modern Iran
Setting our living standards and expectations based on the status of others is like wishing that apples were onions.
— Dr. Jacinta Mpalyenkana, Ph.D, MBA
Or may-be one who is puzzled at me.As if I were not puzzled at myself!
— Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
The true essence of greatness is in finding self in selfishness
— Mayur Ramgir
He has the feeling that merely by being alive he is blocking his own way. From this sense of hindrance, in turn, he deduces the proof that he is alive.
— Franz Kafka, The Zürau Aphorisms
Persecution complexes are reaffirming to those who benefit from unearned privileges.
— DaShanne Stokes
If you think being straight means you're being discriminated against, you're probably misreading your privilege.
— DaShanne Stokes
Knowing your ignorance is far better than knowing what you know! Understanding the path and will of God is far better than mastering your own path.
— Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
You’ll be able to receive gifts of love from others if you are willing to share yours with them…
— Latika Teotia
No one knows a man better than himself.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Speculation, movements having abandoned rational thought, echo chambers, projection, hypocrisy by little to no self-awareness, bewildering minds brainwashed and manipulative hearts manipulated - one is sure to find these à la people cock-sure in their biased and fanatical, immovable despising of persons. We would all do well to humbly re-think from time to time: 'Whom do I really hate? For what purpose?
— Criss Jami
You're surroundings can either be a reflection of you or you can end up being a reflection of your surroundings. Ultimately, one will occur noticeably or unnoticeably.
— Tyconis D. Allison Ty
people inspire you, or they drain you-Pick them wisely
— Hans F hansen
The elements of chemistry are many, but finite so are the techniques of enlightenment; everybody falls in love somehow.
— Efrat Cybulkiewicz
I'm a seeker who writes about what I find. And maybe, on just the right day, I can help you flatten your learning curve. If I've got anything to say, it's this: you are the authority on you.
— Danielle LaPorte, White Hot Truth: Clarity for Keeping It Real on Your Spiritual Path from One Seeker to Another
A person must be in tune with the light and dark forces of their nature and remain in harmony with the bands of their own multivariate being.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
Character modification requires active participation in challenging new experiences, but without reflection upon our encounters in life and the purposeful alteration in our base philosophy new experiences alone will not result in core personality changes. Our thoughts become our habits, and our habits reveal our character. Only by thinking and acting differently will a person attain the quality of character that they seek.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
Once again I am only who I am.
— George Saunders, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
With increased self-awareness comes focus... We become selective. We refrain from jumping to grab every opportunity that comes on our way...
— Assegid Habtewold, The 9 Cardinal Building Blocks: For Continued Success in Leadership
When leaders lack self-awareness, they doubt themselves; uncertain about their abilities; unclear about the direction to take on each turn, and more...
— Assegid Habtewold, The 9 Cardinal Building Blocks: For Continued Success in Leadership
Those who benefit from unearned privilege are too often quick to discount those who don't.
— DaShanne Stokes
If you want to know more about someone, look at their results.
— Jennifer Ho-Dougatz
We are the instruments of genius, yet more the rhythm and less the drum as each expanding beat arises.
— Heather K. O'Hara, AXIS, The Song in the Center of the Soul
There can be no one better than yourself, so be the best version of you because no one is born to represent another.
— Gift Gugu Mona
Bigotry hurts the economy, so the next time you want to blame minorities for your problems, first take a look in the mirror.
— DaShanne Stokes
A fine line exists between quitting on ourselves and letting go of a restrictive position in life and moving forward to reach our ultimate destination based upon our natal predisposition honed by a lifetime of experimentation. Who has not been forced to stop and ask ourselves, ‘who are we,’ ‘what are we doing,’ and ‘where are we going?’ Who has not been forced to pause by life’s dynamic forces and ask ourselves, ‘what mystical chords bind us as a species; what is the meaning of life; and how do we give birth to our genetic blueprint while shaping a sense of purposefulness out of our own existence and striving to bring joy to other people’s hearth?’ To answer these life affirming questions that gnaw most voraciously at our consciousness at the time when tension and unsettling trauma besieges us, we must appreciate our heritage, be mindful our epoch, accept responsibility for our adult decisions, and strive to accumulate wisdom that segues our entrance into the future. Each of us must arrive at a unifying philosophy that guides our living quest, and the sooner we come to terms with our eccentric self the quicker we will perceive and appreciate the ineffable beauty of nature.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
The road to enlightenment requires a life dedicated to self-study, accepting the minor tragedies of life as an ineluctable part of the human condition.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
We employ our personality, what we know, think, and believe, in order to interpret the world, making self-understanding a critical act because it establishes the baseline for our philosophical and intellectual approach towards life.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
It takes extraordinary mental discipline to transmit human experience without perversion. Truth telling is unnatural. Lying is an important aspect of humanity. We lie to other people to prevent hurt feelings and we deceive ourselves in order to protect our noble sense of being a good person. Dishonesty and inaccuracy preserves our quest seeking uninterrupted personal pleasure. I shall eschew pleasure seeking and cultivate precision of mind and moral character that precious truth telling necessitates. Reading and writing, along with observing nature and studious reflection on vivid personal experiences is the process methodology that will bring me closest to discovering inviolate verity of existence and becoming a doyen for all the immaculate truth, beauty, and goodness in this world.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
When you have an open mind and you're flexible....not married to your beliefs, you can see clearly because you're able to feel and remain neutral at the same time.You're curious.
— Dana Gore, Choose Awareness
In the absence of self-control, this primordial nature of the limbic brain often compels the mind to give in to evils of corruption.
— Abhijit Naskar, The Education Decree
All roads taken lead us only to ourselves.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
The real virtue is not to be free from desires but to be content with what you have.
— Abhijit Naskar, The Education Decree
Narrative writing represents a personal attempt to quantify and understand the psychological singularities behind the author’s personality traits as delineated by winnowed list of formative life experiences.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
The mysteries of life include the external and the internal conundrums that each person encounters in a world composed of competing ideologies and agents of change. Conflicting ideas include political, social, legal, and ethical concepts. Agents of change include environmental factors, social pressure to conform, aging, and the forces inside us that made us into whom we are as well as the forces compelling us to be a different type of person.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
In judging our progress as individual we tend to concentrate on external factors such as one's social position, influence and popularity, wealth and standard of education. These are, of course, important in measuring one's success in material matters and it is perfectly understandable if many people exert themselves mainly to achieve all these. But internal factors may be even more crucial in assessing one's development as a human being. Honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, pure generosity, absence of vanity, readiness to serve others - qualites which are within reach of every soul - are the foundation of one's spiritual life.
— Nelson Mandela, Conversations With Myself
Oversimplifying is the first grave mistake we make when confronted by complexity; overconfidence is the second. And there is a third: based on our overconfidence in our oversimplified conclusions, we overreact.
— Ted Cadsby, Closing the Mind Gap: Making Smarter Decisions in a Hypercomplex World
Self-confidence comes with self-awareness.
— Deepak Burfiwala, Self-Ignorance Is Your Problem. Self-Awareness Is Your Solution.: Success Is Your Birthright! Life Is Yours and You Are the Pilot of It, Do Something about It.
I always dream of it: that something will open my eyes, and open everything inside me as well.
— Oddný Eir, Land of Love and Ruins
Loving yourself may seem like the hardest thing to do. But it's the greatest gift you can give yourself. If you're waiting for someone else to do it for you, you're wasting your time.
— Rosa Livingstone, Self-Sabotage: The Art of Screwing Up: Understanding the How, Where, When, and Why We All Do It!
The most astonishing fact of life is that MAN has not only stopped responding to others, but also to HIMSELF!
— Ramana Pemmaraju
Through youthe world learnsto recognize itself— as heaven.
— Ivan M. Granger
The first and immediate thing to do when you find yourself stuck in terror is to breathe!
— Deborah Sandella
Since we have been primed to think of the subconscious as a closet of monsters to be avoided, we tend to fear it. Thus, we avoid the unconscious storage room where the creative solution is hidden.
— Deborah Sandella
Be careful what you tell yourself, and do not belittle yourself, even in jest. Negative, deprecating self-talk can do significant harm to your self-image.
— Cheryl L. Ilov, Forever Fit and Flexible: Feeling Fabulous at Fifty and Beyond
We cannot replicate other people’s lives. We must each institute and broker a personalized meaning to our exclusive existence. We must each serve as our own Zen master, awaken to our inviolate personal truth, and strive to fulfill our sui generis (unique) nature.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
We gain knowledge about the interworking of our personal mind through observation of the external world and personal introspection. Contemplation requires a degree of stillness, the willingness to consider deep thoughts.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
Reading and writing are solitary activities that increase a person’s capacity for concentration, awareness, and conceptual thought as the person weaves immediate information with stored memories.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
A person can only see their shadow if they awaken their eclectic soul. Self-understanding commences by admitting to the shadowy presence of the primordial unconsciousness. The unconscious mind is a magical concoction of logical and irrational thoughts and feelings.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
All of us share conscious recognition of our individual self. Each of us is more than a product of our conscious thoughts. The dictation of our unconscious mind also affects our behavior. The unconsciousness cogitates upon problems that are too harsh to submit to conscious resolution. The unconscious mind frequently directs us to take action that a rational, conscious mind would eschew. Resembling a two-sided coin, both our conscious and unconscious minds contribute to our thought processes. Collaborative thoughts lead to action, and repeated actions result in the development of behavior patterns, and ingrained behavior patterns lead to a sense of identity.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
Tim blinked his eyes a few times, and then crossed a leg over in an attempt to regain a composure that would cover any visible traces of destructive inclinations possibly stored in any mental compartments in his emotional vehicle. He trembled a bit after catching a presumed glimpse of unstableness in himself through the second person perception of himself that could have possibly been perceived by his supervisor.
— Calvin W. Allison, Strong Love Church
Every time that we consider our past, examine our present environment, and speculate about the future, we engage in mental projection. Contemplation merges into thinking, and thinking unspools into theorizing suppositions. Every act of attentiveness expands our state of awareness. Deductive surmises represent an ongoing process of making applicable connections between theories and facts. Devising working hypothesis represents one of the highest intellectual achievements of humankind.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
Where there is awareness, there is change.
— Eileen Anglin
There is always a worthwhile price for discovery. Discover who you are. Know yourself.
— Sesan Kareem
Self-awareness is inevitably erratic, a work in progress, an etch-a-sketch that shifts with the slightest shimmer of movement. Doing the best we can is the best we can do.
— Narboe, Nan
You are both the worshipper and the worshipped.
— Abhijit Naskar
There's always something we don't know anything about." she said. "More than we like to admit. The more we discover, the more we realize we don't fully understand. Our world, our solar system, the universe... it all adds up. I mean, when you think about it-- do we even know that much about ourselves?
— Ross Montgomery, Perijee and Me
Morality exists in the neurons as a natural sensation. Religion only tries to codify it.
— Abhijit Naskar
Nothing I do is natural, realistic, organic or accidental. I'm never spontaneous, I'm completely premeditated.
— Nuno Roque
A man who's discontents were barely known to himself, awakening in middle age to the horror of self-reflection.
— Philip Roth, American Pastoral
The God that humanity so keenly seeks, lives within the human biology, yet they wander hitherto searching for it.
— Abhijit Naskar
Religion, as it is generally taught all over the world, is said to be based upon faith and belief, and, in most cases, consists only of different sets of theories, and that is the reason why we find all religions quarrelling with one another.
— Abhijit Naskar
When I'm sad I tend to slide in to day dream and sing along whatever I hear on the radio.
— Martin M. Stupak
You may travel the whole world, but you'll not find true religion anywhere. Whatever there is, it is in your own mind.
— Abhijit Naskar
There is no such thing as 'God given scripture', 'the messenger of God' or 'the Last Prophet'.
— Abhijit Naskar
无惧无急 (The fearless do not hurry.)
— Eric Micha'el Leventhal
Why is it that we so easily confide secrets to strangers that we so carefully hide from ourselves?
— Richard Paul Evans, The Mistletoe Promise
We might do well to take a look at what we’ve crammed into our pockets as it will say much about what we’ve crammed into our hearts.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
The less human you feel, the more human you become.
— Eric Micha'el Leventhal
The person you can most easily mislead is yourself.
— Anonymous
When we can trust that it's we who think, feel, and act rather than the ghosts of our parents or well-trained robots, we learn that we can also love, be in relationships, and be in the world without losing ourselves.
— Bud Harris, Sacred Selfishness: A Guide to Living a Life of Substance
If you enslave me with fake money, and I realize enslavement is fake. Its in your best interest to set me free!
— Tice Davids aka David T. Parker
Just because you feel lost doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong. Feeling certain that you are correct in every decision and situation is an addiction. If you think that the journey of self-discovery will bring you more solid facts and certainties about yourself and the world, you will be frustrated. The more you see, the more lost you will feel. That is natural. The more you discover of yourself, the more confused you will become. This is natural. The wiser you get, the more you will see that there are many paths walked by just as many people, and that just because yours is different from someone else's doesn't mean one of you is wrong. This is natural. Over time, you will develop humility, compassion, and a higher tolerance for confusion. If you allow the feeling of being lost to drive you into a search for absolute truths and correct answers, you may feel more secure when you get there, but in reality, you will be taking a step back. Allow yourself to be lost, and you will see so much more of the forest of your soul than if you beeline back for the trail. Explore. Get lost. Embrace the inevitability of confusion.
— Vironika Tugaleva
No more looking at a wall and pretending it's a mirror. No more shelving fiction in the non-fiction section. No more thinking I could get away with it.
— David Levithan, You Know Me Well
Enlightenment gives profound joy of the heart and a great love for the fellow beings.
— Amit Ray, Enlightenment Step by Step
For awakened human beings, there was no obligation—none, none, none at all—except this: to search for yourself, become sure of yourself, feel your way forward along your own path, wherever it led.
— Hermann Hesse, Demian. Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend
I came on earth for something, I must do something, and I must live and leave not just anything, but something!
— Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
Fearing the wind that causes the shaking branch directs you to where energy is needed for improving your life.
— Andrea Dye, 25 Years, One Lesson: Alpha Omega Zen
If I were surrounded by people who always approved of me, I wouldn’t need such a deep relationship with my own sense of right and wrong. And you know what that means? It means that other people’s approval is actually a hindrance, more than a helper, when it comes to self-discovery.
— Vironika Tugaleva
I came to the earth for something, I must do something, and I must live and leave not just anything, but something!
— Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
It is so easy to forget the importance of emotional self-care. Especially when we have obvious symptoms of mental and physical illness. Emotions seem irrelevant, unrelated, invisible. But when we look at a giant oak tree, the seed that bore it is invisible too.
— Vironika Tugaleva
My default button was set to self-destruct. It had been since birth.
— Mercy Celeste, Bootleg Diva: Confessions of a Quarterback Princess by Levi Brody
Our beliefs are the lens through which we see the world. They are the glasses we put on in the morning, which provide the patterns we see. As we become more self-aware, we can identify our patterns, and then, to the extent we desire, change our lenses.
— Patrick Sweeney
To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.
— Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind: And Other Aphorisms
Self-questioning and a desire to gain self-understanding is the fêted act of humankind.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
There is no pre-mapped intellectual topology path leading to truth. Truth is a process of conducting a searching investigatory dialogue with oneself in an attempt to examine and discern the contents of a person’s own mind. Every person must ask himself or herself what is essential in life.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
With every passing day, we add a page to our personal story, an illustrative script that casts our character shaped by an implacable external environment and fashioned by our supple state of inwardness.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
Lies, greed, pettiness, and ugly emotions ensnare a person. We are free people whom construct our own cages that we allow to suppress our vital instinct to live a wholesome life. Truth telling demands an awareness of what sins cage a person in. Truthfulness also commands that a person fess up to the role that he or she played in scripting unpleasant scenes in a tarnished personal history.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
A mature person reaps joy in the commonplace acts of living, appreciates the serenity of just being, while balancing the responsibilities that come naturally about when deeply immersed in family and community affairs. Directing their attention outward, assisting other people in their troubled times, while denying themselves the indulgence of self-absorption frees a person’s bidding mind from a jumble of discordant thoughts, wants, and unholy bequests.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
When you love yourself too much, sometimes it becomes a problem, because it gets out of control. if you don't control yourself, you become yourself closest enemy !
— "Beta" Metani' Marashi
Life has a tendency to provide a person with what they need in order to grow. Our beliefs, what we value in life, provide the roadmap for the type of life that we experience. A period of personal unhappiness reveals that our values are misplaced and we are on the wrong path. Unless a person changes their values and ideas, they will continue to experience discontentment.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
To ask who we are represents a primary reflex in human consciousness. Every person seeks to understand him or herself and reach a verifiable and cohesive image of his or her own identity.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
A true understand of oneself is vital. Writing enables us to act as a sun in our own universe, to become the perfect overseer, and observe the innumerable changes in the seasons of life. Writing is an intense form of self-exploration, and through thoughtful encounters with the humble self, we grow, and that growth diminishes unhappiness and creates joy.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
Self-mastery involves a studious account of all aspects of human life and developing a comprehensive philosophy for living without fear or anxiety throughout the remaining years of a person’s life. A person must live within the limits of the human condition, which does not justify giving into all of our destructive impulses or living a pleasurable and guiltless life. Self-mastery does not require a person to live a life without passion; rather, it entails channeling vibrant personal passions into living in a virtuous manner of created beings.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
Understanding of oneself is the first act in establishing a transformative philosophy for living a vivid and a reflective existence. Knowing thy self is essential to designing and instigating a meaningful life that is self-directed instead of exclusively controlled by innate traits and external determinates.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
When you know yourself—your strengths, joys, limitations, and fears—you can live in truth and transparency in all areas of your life.
— Michael Thomas Sunnarborg, Balancing Work, Relationships & Life in Three Simple Steps
Self-development requires direct action. Knowledge must precede action. The self’s relation to the world must be grounded in reality through ideas and thoughts. Self-reflection and introspection expands our appreciation of life.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
And here I am. God and I, ever One, and Alone.
— Fakeer Ishavardas
I can't help seeing a cage for what it is. Sure, it protects the bulb, but maybe if people weren't so careless, then nothing would need to be caged.
— A.S. King, Ask the Passengers
For the first time in his life, he felt exactly what he was, and he was not impressed.
— Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale
The greatest mistake is to think that we ever know why we do things...I suppose the nearest we can ever come to it is by getting what old people call 'experience.' But by the time we've got that we're no longer the persons who did the things we no longer understand. The trouble is, I suppose, that we change every moment; and the things we did stay.
— Edith Wharton, The Buccaneers
I regret it when I suppress my feelings too long and they burst forth in ways that are distorted or attacking or hurtful.
— Carl R. Rogers, A Way of Being
When you become self aware, you know your uniqueness, strengths, and limitations too. You become easy to work with others. You also avoid competing with others unhealthily.
— Assegid Habtewold, The 9 Cardinal Building Blocks: For Continued Success in Leadership
Unconditional love goes beyond holding on and letting go. Real love is about truth. It's about looking at what's really going on instead of the stories we tell ourselves about it. It's about being able to love someone from afar, when we need to, because we see that closeness turns us into the worst versions of ourselves.
— Vironika Tugaleva
I can't tell you how many times in my life I have been told that I have “control issues”. Historically, this statement has brought me annoyance—the kind of irritation that can only be described as a self-protective reaction to having my behaviours labelled for exactly what they were. Needless to say, these accusations would make me defensive. I'd pull my armour tighter and get out my weapons—anything to protect myself from the truth.I realized, one day, that there were only a few things I could control, and a whole lot of things that I couldn't. I realized that trying to control everything around me was a recipe for failure, because it simply wasn't possible.I wish I could tell you that I "let go" then—that it was a lovely, beautiful spiritual moment, and now I'm all better. But that isn't true. Because, for me, seeking to control things which can't be controlled isn't a random tick or flaw. It's a stage of communication in the language of my own mind. If I don't listen to the first whispers that tell me I've repressed some emotion or neglected to process some event—then, stage two starts. Every piece of dirt on the floor, every chewing noise, every unexpected obstacle... they all become intolerable.So, I have two choices when this happens. I can allow my desire to control the outside world to turn into trying to control it. Or, I can allow myself to hear what is being said to me—to interpret this strange language that I speak to myself in and respond with compassion.Do I consistently do the wise thing first? No. I forget. And then I remember, somewhere in the middle of neurotically scrubbing a wall. But I remember faster now than I did before, and sometimes I really am able to respond quickly.It's a journey. I'm not perfect. But I am doing the right thing, and I get better at it every time I have the chance to practice. That's what learning and letting go really is—a practice. It's never over. And it never is, and never will be, perfect.
— Vironika Tugaleva
I love to laugh. Specially at myself. Sometimes I spend hours doing it.
— Nuno Roque
The intolerant "true believer" is a menace to any field, yet I suspect each one of us finds traces of that person in ourself.
— Carl R. Rogers, A Way of Being
She thought about this. She had analyzed it in depth. When you live alone, travel alone, exist solely on the outskirts of other people's lives, you do have time to wonder why what you want most in life is out of reach. You also have the time to tell yourself that you don't want it at all, though whether you can ever be completely convinced is something else.
— Barbara Delinsky, Sweet Salt Air
try not just to become a person of success but rather a person of value.
— Angie Fox
Be careful not to think that just because you know what a person is going to say, you know what that person is going to do.Be careful not to think that just because you know what a person is going to do to others, you know what that person is going to do (or not do) to you.
— Clifford Cohen
Before you wonder ‘Am I doing things right?’ ask yourself, ‘Am I doing the right things?
— Justin Bienvenue, Opium Warfare
Stifling your emotions is not the way. Ignoring your emotions is not the way. Your emotions carry important messages for you. Take the time to receive the meaning.
— Stevie Puckett, Bliss or Bust: Uplifting Thoughts
You can't admit to someone else what you're too damn afraid to admit to yourself.
— Beth  Lewis, The Wolf Road
Self-discovery changes everything, including your relationships with people. When you find your authentic self, those who loved your mask are disappointed. you may end up alone, but you don’t need to stay alone. While it’s painful to sever old connections, it’s not a tragedy. it’s an opportunity. Now, you can find people who understand the importance of looking for truth and being authentic. Now you can find people who want to connect deeply, like you’ve always wanted to, instead of constant small talk and head games. Now you can have real intimacy. Now, you can find your tribe.
— Vironika Tugaleva
Crossing the Atlantic on that new day was supposed to be a sharp delineation, a from-now-on demarcation in my life story. What I took off from was not supposed to arrive with me upon landing or ever pulse in me again. From the ocean and sky and the hours in flight, I intended to extract a selective, permanent amnesia.
— Laurie Perez, The Look of Amie Martine
She believes that everyone we meet influences us, that we need to hear their stories to learn more about ourselves.
— Gemma Liviero, Broken Angels
Feelings have more to do with the story you tell yourself than the facts.
— Marilyn Suttle
Possibly the apparent relapse they had suffered was not a fall and a cause for suffering, but a leap forward and a positive act.
— Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game
All of us are in desperate need of the restoration of our wholeness through union with our inmost self.
— Stephan A. Hoeller
Dont you know if you keap getting a head of your self youwl jus only fall over your self when you get to where you are going?
— Russell Hoban
Matter. noun: what we’re made of
—  the very stuff of the universe. verb: to command your contribution to the substance composing everything
Emma, you have lived before…in other lifetimes.”I was waiting for him to burst into laughter and tell me this was some ridiculous prank. Where was he going with this?“I have been reincarnated?” “Yes, several times. You accidently breathed in God’s energy at an Egyptian temple and that energy never dies.” I sat there staring blankly, wondering if I had fallen in love with a mad man. “Emma, your soul is confused…”“Between?”“Being human and being God
— Melanie S. Wolfe, The Last Life of Emma Taylor
You may judge others only according to your knowledge of yourself.
— Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam
I used to be mad when they called me crazy, until I realized that in those moment they consider me insane I was following my heart, doing what makes me happy and most of all being myself.so now when I am called crazy I take it as a great compliment because it's a confirmation that I'm living my best life.
— Micheline Jean Louis
Everyone had learned that it was worth giving up privacy for the merest possibility of fame, and the idea that only a private self was truly autonomous and free had be lost in the static of the airwaves.
— Salman Rushdie
Bring a mirror and let a dirty face recognize itself.
— Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint
Man need discomfort for awaken.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
This was what Dennis had been doing lately: granting everyone permission to feel the way they were going to feel regardless. It was the books. Dennis’s relationship to his own feelings had become tender, curatorial. Dismantling. Entomological. Mave couldn’t be like that. She treated her emotional life the way she treated her car: She let it go, let it tough it out. To friends she said things like “I know you’re thinking this looks like a ’79, but it’s really an ’87.” She finally didn’t care to understand all that much about her emotional life; she just went ahead and did it. The point, she thought, was to attend the meager theater of it, quietly, and not stand up in the middle and shout, “Oh, my God, you can see the crew backstage!” There was a point at which the study of something became a frightening and naive thing.
— Lorrie Moore
The great thing about falling apart, is that you get to decide how to put yourself back together. Make good choices.
— Stacie Hammond, Ana J. Awakens
Denial of one's need for others is the most common type of defense against bonding. If people come from a situation, whether growing up or later in life, where good, safe relationships were not available to them, they learn to deny that they even want them. Why want what you can't have? They slowly get rid of their awareness of the need.
— Henry Cloud, Changes That Heal: How to Understand the Past to Ensure a Healthier Future
Do not seek to rule any man other than yourself.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
I am a great lover.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Self-acceptance should not be confused with an over-vaulting aggrandisement of self over others. That individual's exaggerated positive view of self relies upon a comparison with others - they sustain their own positive self-view, relatively, by maintaining a negative view of others.
— Dave Mearns, Working at Relational Depth in Counselling and Psychotherapy
Identity was a liquid state, ever interchangeable, and adaptable to its surroundings... It was better to not have favourites - a snake didn't mourn when it had to shed its skin.
— Leonardo Donofrio, Old Country
My heart only knows love.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
And that was it. That was the moment when everything started to shift. What do you want?
— Stacie Hammond, Ana J. Awakens
Do not seek to control other souls. Seek to know your sacred soul
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Do you know yourself?.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
If you are loved, that is all you need.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Self-awareness paradoxically requires an awareness of the other.
— Charlie Jane Anders, All the Birds in the Sky
Racism is not simply about one man's irrational hatred of another but his self-hatred, doubting his own moral goodness and purpose.
— Michael R. French, Once Upon a Lie
Those who seek to listen to their own inner voice forget to listen to the judgment of others.
— Vironika Tugaleva
If you can't be liked being kind, then be hated being cruel.
— Joshua Teya
not having a space you can call your own is dangerous. Everyone needs a sanctuary.
— Marie Kondō, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing
I desperate desire to read the Holy Scriptures is spirituality of the soul.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Everyone loses their class when they travel through hell, but only a few will regain it if they remain humble and accept the part they played in their own misery.
— Shannon L. Alder
A bookshelf is a biography written by others.
— Kat Lehmann
Richard Wright and his Negro intellectual colleagues never realized the plain truth that no one in the United States understood the revolutionary potential of the Negro better than the Negro's white radical allies. They understood it instinctively, and revolutionary theory had little to do with it. What Wright could not see was that what the Negro's allies feared most of all was that this sleeping, dream-walking black giant might wake up and direct the revolution all by himself, relegating his white allies to a humiliating second-class status. The negro's allies were not about to tell the Negro anything that might place him on the path to greater power and independence in the revolutionary movement than they themselves had. The rules of the power game meant that unless the American Negro taught himself the profound implications of his own revolutionary significance in America, it would never be taught to him by anybody else. Unless the Negro intellectuals understood that in pursuit of this self-understanding, they would have to make their own rules, by and for themselves, nationalism would forever remain--as it was for Wright-- "a bewildering and vexing question.
— Harold Cruse
My sufficiency is in the sufficiency of Jesus Christ.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
No person, relationship, or religion should complete you. They can enhance whatever is already there, but completion of the self comes from within, not from anything beyond that.
— Pamela Morris
How silly of us to think we can hide from God. How insane of us to think our thoughts are private, don’t you know that nothing is hidden? And what is it that you are hiding from anyway, your light, the love that you are? Are you afraid of remembering that you are a Child of God? That you are whole and holy, what a beautiful golden being of Light you are my child. There is nothing you see in this world that is as beautiful and brilliant as you, the most beautiful sunset, or sunrise is nothing in comparison to you. I have one thought and that is for you to remember who you are, where you are and how much you are LOVED. -God
— Sharon Kay Casey, Clouds of Heaven, Beings of Light
All that we see around us is not what it appears…As is the second coming not what we thought it would be. It is the knowledge that the spirit of God lives in all things and all things are joined together in the light of Love who is God. Thus accepting the truth of who you are
— Sharon Kay Casey, Clouds of Heaven, Beings of Light
Ordinary life is fascinating when viewed with extraordinary perspective.
— Angela Howell
You should not seek forgiveness after an unkind act. The act was done on purpose. You must first understand why the act occurred and then move forward.
— Lloyd A. Green, Reflections of EL: In Search of Self
Do not except anything as love without truth because love and truth have always been best friends.
— Shannon L. Alder
The more things you have in common with the normal population the more you are not being yourself.
— Ray Mancini, Zen, Meditation & the Art of Shooting: Performance Edge - Sports Edition
The feeling of 'turning into your dad' is nothing compared to the realisation that your son is turning into you.
— Andy  Graham, FRANKLIN: A Brother in Search of Himself
Worship is invoking the divinity within. Meditation is awareness of divinity within. Enlightenment is realization of divinity within. Nirvana is being the divinity
— Rashmit Kalra
I saw for the first time that I could stop giving people the power to make me feel disrespected. In my anger I began to see the absurdity of allowing this boy to shame me.
— Aspen Matis, Girl in the Woods: A Memoir
Stop what you are doing. Go outside and breathe. The world will not end if you take ten minutes for yourself.
— Fawn Germer
Still, I know how to use the little I have, my flat stomach and rather flatter chest, my slightly bowed, but strong and flexible legs. I produce plenty of phlegm. I have clever hands and a stare that could take the silvering off a mirror. Men flatter themselves they are original in admiring me. How confused they are when they find out they have competition. (There is no desperation like that of a lover who has decided to do you a favor, and finds himself waiting in line.)
— Shelley Jackson
Neuroscientists have discovered that when you ask the brain to meditate, it gets better not just at meditating, but at a wide range of self-control skills, including attention, focus, stress management, impulse control, and self-awareness.
— Kelly McGonigal, The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It
I don't know why I resented it so intensely to have them think of me as something newly minted in their private treasury, but it was-I am certain-echoes of that idea that had been sounding in the chambers of my mind from the time we had arrived in Chicago. I wanted to get up and show everyone what a fool he was, to shout at him: I'm a human being, a person - with parents and memories and a history - and I was before you ever wheeled me into that operating room!
— Daniel Keyes
You will not really know where you stand until you have been tested.
— Sandra M. Michelle, Look at You: A Spiritual Examination of the Self
The road to empowerment starts from self-awareness
— Kazeem Olalekan, The Doctrine of Universal Truths
You will find what you seek.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!
Being a good communicator Patch, begins with listening, and listening to yourself first.
— Michele Jennae, CHARGE! The Patchwork Rhino
I stared at the stop sign and even though I was only five I thought, I will remember that stop sign for the rest of my life. The dents and the bumps, the colors and the shape, the three-fingered, black scuff and long silver scrape - even the dirty gray sky behind it. Days will go by and I will grow old but from time to time the image of this stop sign will come to my mind and I will think about it and remember what I was thinking at this exact time. I even remember thinking that I was awfully young to have such a profound thought and premonition but there it was.
— April Adams, Drawing the Dragon
You not only have a right to be an individual. You have a responsibility.
— Eleanor Roosevelt
Go find yourself first so you can also find me.
— Jalaluddin Rumi
the desire to be near the beloved object is at first not due to the idea of possessing it, but simply to let the two experiences compare themselves, like reflections in different mirrors... For from here love degenerates into habit, possession, and back to loneliness.
— Lawrence Durrell, The Alexandria Quartet
Before we come to Christ, we must come to ourselves.
— Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor's Journey Into Christian Faith
I am a new universe beginning to expand.
— Scott Service
self-awareness: the ability to realize what we are doing as we do it, and understand why we are doing it.
— Kelly McGonigal, The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It
For if there are (at a venture) seventy-six different times all ticking in the mind at once, how many different people are there not - Heaven help us _ all having lodgement at one time or another in the human spirit? Some say two thousand and fifty two. So that it is the most usual thing in the world for a person to call, directly they are alone...Come, come! I'm sick to death of this particular self. I want another. But it is not altogether plain sailing either...these selves of which we are built up, one on top of another, as plates are piled up on a waiter's hand, have attachments elsewhere, sympathies, little constitutions and rights of their own...so that one will only come if it is raining....another if you can promise it a glass of wine - and so on...
— Virginia Woolf
What distinguished him in a moment of crisis was his self-command.
— T.J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
The snowball of selfishness quickly becomes an avalanche.
— Angela Lynne Craig, Pivot Leadership: Small Steps...Big Change
Ani saw herself clearly in that moment, as a face in darkness gains sudden dimensions in a flash of lightning - a young girl, a silly thing, a lapdog, a broken mare.
— Shannon Hale
Once I finally understand the immensity of my own impoverishment, I am finally in a position to see the enormity of God’s majesty.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough, An Intimate Collision: Encounters with Life and Jesus
[T]he only thing that has power over you is what you can't say, even to yourself.
— Naomi Jackson, The Star Side of Bird Hill
We take most everything at face value. Otherwise how could we get by?" ~ "The Museum of the Dearly Departed
— Rebecca Makkai, Music for Wartime: Stories
In brief: consciousness is a phenomenon in the zone of evolution. This world lights up to itself only where or only inasmuch as it develops, procreates new forms. Places of stagnancy slip from consciousness; they may only appear in their interplay with places of evolution.If this is granted it follows that consciousness and discord with one's own self are inseparably linked up, even that they must, as it were, be proportional to each other. This sounds a paradox, but the wisest of all times and peoples have testified to confirm it. Men and women for whom this world was lit in an unusually light of awareness, and who by life and word have, more than others, formed and transformed that work of art which we call humanity, testify by speech and writing or even by their lives that more than others have they been torn by the pangs of inner discord. Let this be a consolation to him who also suffers from it. Without it nothing enduring has ever been begotten.
— Erwin Schrödinger, What Is Life? with Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches