Introspection Quotes

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
― Aristotle

“Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.”
― Lewis Carroll , Alice in Wonderland

“You can't lie to your soul.”
― Irvine Welsh, Porno

“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
― C.G. Jung

“The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.”
― Aldous Huxley

“In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion."

[The Minotaur]”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

“Grover didn't say anything for awhile. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.
...live in the question.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“We search for happiness everywhere, but we are like Tolstoy's fabled beggar who spent his life sitting on a pot of gold, under him the whole time. Your treasure--your perfection--is within you already. But to claim it, you must leave the buy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything

“Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.”
― William S. Burroughs, The Job: Interviews with William S. Burroughs

“The only journey is the one within.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“When you see a good person, think of becoming like her/him. When you see someone not so good, reflect on your own weak points.”
― Confucius

“But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.”
― Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.”
― Franz Kafka

“The problem with introspection is that it has no end.”
― Philip K. Dick

“Many people suffer from the fear of finding oneself alone, and so they don't find themselves at all.”
― Rollo May, Man's Search for Himself

“It's a fact—everyone is ignorant in some way or another.

Ignorance is our deepest secret.

And it is one of the scariest things out there, because those of us who are most ignorant are also the ones who often don't know it or don't want to admit it.

Here is a quick test:

If you have never changed your mind about some fundamental tenet of your belief, if you have never questioned the basics, and if you have no wish to do so, then you are likely ignorant.

Before it is too late, go out there and find someone who, in your opinion, believes, assumes, or considers certain things very strongly and very differently from you, and just have a basic honest conversation.

It will do both of you good.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“Truth suffers from too much analysis.

-Ancient Fremen Saying”
― Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

“Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.”
― George Eliot

“Sometimes, you have to look back in order to understand the things that lie ahead.”
― Yvonne Woon, Dead Beautiful

“The most introspective of souls are often those that have been hurt the most.”
― Shannon Alder

“The deeper I go into myself the more I realize that I am my own enemy.”
― Floriano Martins

“A man must find time for himself. Time is what we spend our lives with. If we are not careful we find others spending it for us. . . . It is necessary now and then for a man to go away by himself and experience loneliness; to sit on a rock in the forest and to ask of himself, 'Who am I, and where have I been, and where am I going?' . . . If one is not careful, one allows diversions to take up one's time—the stuff of life.”
― Carl Sandburg

“I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn”
― Robert Frost

“Think of your head as an unsafe neighborhood; don't go there alone.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Dry

“My friend...care for your psyche...know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves" -Socrates”
― Socrates

“My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery - always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What's this passion for?”
― Virginia Woolf

“One could argue that most of the trouble in the world is caused by introspection.”
― Nick Hornby, A Long Way Down

“I do feel that I’ve managed to make something I could maybe call my world…over time…little by little. And when I’m inside it, to some extent, I feel kind of relieved. But the very fact I felt I had to make such a world probably means that I’m a weak person, that I bruise easily, don’t you think? And in the eyes of society at large, that world of mine is a puny little thing. It’s like a cardboard house: a puff of wind might carry it off somewhere.”
― Haruki Murakami, After Dark

“What is reading but silent conversation.”
― Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations