Top Self Knowledge Quotes

A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don't know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox's or bear...

An artist has got to get acquainted with himself just as much as he can. It is no easy job, for it is not a present-day habit of humanity.

At that moment, when the world around him melted away, when he stood alone like a star in the heavens, he was overwhelmed by a feeling of icy despair, but he was more firmly himself than ever. That wa...

Thinking, he walked ever more slowly and asked himself, What is it now that you were hoping to learn from doctrines and teachers, and what is it that they—who taught you so much—were unable to teach y...

What we encounter in works of art and philosophy are objective versions of our own pains and struggles, evoked and defined in sound, language or image. Artists and philosophers not only show us what w...

[P]art of having a complicated mind was understanding its limits, understanding that it couldn't think of everything. Stupidity mistook itself for intelligence, whereas intelligence knew its own stupi...

If Christ were born in Bethlehem a thousand times and not in thee thyself then art thou lost eternally.

Being aware of who you are, you will ensure that you do not waste your time spending energy on unnecessary things

The idea of original sin--of guilt with no possibility of innocence, no freedom of choice, no alternatives--inherently militates against self-esteem. The very notion of guilt without volition or respo...

When you build a relationship with your inner self, you will never be alone.

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.

The politeness which she had been brought up to practice as a duty made it impossible for her to escape; while the want of that higher species of self-command, that just consideration of others, that...

Being happy where you are does not mean that you must unquestioningly accept parts of your environment that don't serve you. Where you are is inside of this amazing body, this beautiful moment, this c...

To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.

I am my own muse. I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better.

In the months after the relationship ends, a person can seem to grow at a lightning rate, like in a nature documentary where weeks of footage is run at high speed to show a plant unfurling in seconds,...

The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality and my life, as I write this, is vital even when sad. I may wake up sometime next year without my mind again; it is not likely to stick around...

Was this the triumph of self-knowledge: to suffer more lucidly?

Yes it’s me, I myself, what I turned out to be, (…) I’m the one here in myself, it’s me. (…) Whatever I was, whatever I wasn’t—it’s all in what I am. Whatever I wanted, whatever I didn’t want—all of t...

Sanity is not about confrontation. It's about filtering. Having a stable and happy life is about saying "no" to crazy people, not about inviting them in and then hoping that confrontations are going t...