241 Reflection Quotes

Just as rust, which arose from the iron itself, wears out the iron, likewise, performing an action without examination would destroy us by projecting us into a negative state of existence.

Day by day we should weigh what we have granted to the spirit of the world against what we have denied to the spirit of Jesus, in thought and especially in deed.

I just want to live each moment, but it's kind of hard to do that when you are asked to analyze yourself constantly. But it's also good in that you are forced to think about things that you don't ordinarily think about. I think it's strange.

O tell me, friends, while yet we part, And heart can yet be heard of heart, O tell me then, for what is it Our early plan of life we quit; From all our old intentions range, And why does all so wholly change? O tell me, friends, while yet we part!

I've always made a point of not wasting my life, and every time I come back here I know that all I've done is to waste my life.

I bet you think an egg is something you casually order for breakfast when you can't think of anything else. Well, so did I once, but that was before the egg and I.

Here is a list of fearful things: The jaws of sharks, a vulture's wings, The rabid bite of the dog's of war, The voice of one who went before. But most of all the mirror's gaze, which counts us out our numbered days.

Praise the invisible sun burning beyond the white cold sky, giving us light and the chimney's shadow.

In reading some books we occupy ourselves chiefly with the thoughts of the author; in perusing others, exclusively with our own.

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

A soul without reflection, like a pile Without inhabitant, to ruin runs.

By all means use some time to be alone.

They only babble who practise not reflection.

Tomorrow is a satire on today, And shows its weakness.

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.

As a rule, all heroism is due to a lack of reflection, and thus it is necessary to maintain a mass of imbeciles. If they once understand themselves the ruling men will be lost.

Only when one has lost all curiosity about the future has one reached the age to write an autobiography.

When I reached C Company lines, which were at the top of the hill, I paused and looked back at the camp, just coming into full view below me through the grey mist of early morning.

Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.

You'd learn more about the world by lying on the couch and drinking gin out of a bottle than by watching the news.

Only a fool has no regrets and I'm not a fool.

Searching nature I taste self but at one tankard, that of my own being.

A woman's exterior beauty is a reflection of her internal peace and happiness.

I was appalled that the San Francisco ethic didn't mushroom and envelope the whole world into this loving community of acid freaks. I was very naive.

I like the evening in India, the one magic moment when the sun balances on the rim of the world, and the hush descends, and ten thousand civil servants drift homeward on a river of bicycles, brooding on the Lord Krishna and the cost of living.

I can't deny I'm a better ex-president than I was a president.

If you mean to know yourself, interline such of these aphorisms as affect you agreeably in reading, and set a mark to such as left a sense of uneasiness with you; and then show your copy to whom you please.

I don't have any romanticism about any part of my past. I think of it only inasmuch as it gave me pleasure or helped me grow psychologically. That is the only thing that interests me about yesterday. I don't believe in yesterday, by the way. You know I don't believe in yesterday. I am only interested in what I am doing now.

In my books I might hold the mirror to my own face. If others would like to borrow the mirror, they're welcome. The books aren't there to accuse others - merely to raise issues and keep the debates alive.

This monster of a land, this mightiest of nations, this spawn of the future, turns out to be the macrocosm of microcosm me.

At night I sit in my chamber and read the bible. Far in the distance roars the sea. Then I lie down and think for a long time about the calm and pale man from Nazareth.

Life is made up of constant calls to action, and we seldom have time for more than hastily contrived answers.

These 'Thoughts,' a portion of which originally appeared in 'Chambers' Journal,' are, I wish distinctly to state, only Thoughts. They do not pretend to solve any problems, to lay down any laws, to decide out of one life's experience and within the limits of one volume, any of those great questions which have puzzled generations, and will probably puzzle generations more. They lift the banner of no party; and assert the opinions of no clique. They do not even attempt an originality, which, in treating of a subject like the present, would be either dangerous or impossible. In this book, therefore, many women will find simply the expression of what they have themselves, consciously or unconsciously, oftentimes thought; and the more deeply, perhaps, because it has never come to the surface in words or writing. Those who do the most, often talk - sometimes think - the least: yet thinkers, talkers, and doers, being in earnest, achieve their appointed end. The thinkers put wisdom into the mouth of the speakers, and both strive together to animate and counsel the doers. Thus all work harmoniously together; and verily

At that stage my heart ruled my head'.

I bet the worst part about dying is the part where your whole life passes before you.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Spend some time alone every day.

These 'Thoughts,' a portion of which originally appeared in 'Chambers' Journal,' are, I wish distinctly to state, only Thoughts. They do not pretend to solve any problems, to lay down any laws, to decide out of one life's experience and within the limits of one volume, any of those great questions which have puzzled generations, and will probably puzzle generations more. They lift the banner of no party; and assert the opinions of no clique. They do not even attempt an originality, which, in treating of a subject like the present, would be either dangerous or impossible. In this book, therefore, many women will find simply the expression of what they have themselves, consciously or unconsciously, oftentimes thought; and the more deeply, perhaps, because it has never come to the surface in words or writing. Those who do the most, often talk - sometimes think - the least: yet thinkers, talkers, and doers, being in earnest, achieve their appointed end. The thinkers put wisdom into the mouth of the speakers, and both strive together to animate and counsel the doers. Thus all work harmoniously together; and verily

When war reaches such dimensions as to involve the whole nation, and when the people at its conclusion find they have gained nothing but only observe widespread calamity around them, they are inclined to become more sceptical and desire to investigate the foundations of the arguments which inspired their patriotism, inflamed their passions, and prepared them to offer the supreme sacrifice. They are curious to know why the ostensible objects for which they fought have none of them been attained, more especially if they are the victors.

You hail from Dream-land, Dragon-fly? A stranger hither? So am I, And (sooth to say) I wonder why We either of us came!

But then I ask myself, I have never truly known the man whose flank I have lead one difficult and ascetic life for. Perhaps he has played with my idealism, taking advantage for dark scopes that he has held hidden within himself. How can I expect to know a man who has never opened his heart to me? Till now I do not know what he really thought, knew or wanted. I was alone with my thoughts and my suspicions. And now, the veil that covered this statue has fallen to the ground and instead of an art work, a monster has revealed itself. Now we leave to the historians of the future the task of discussing if that statue was therefore a sin from the beginning, or was changed because of the circumstances. I continue to make the same error: I try to think back to his humble origins. But then I remember how many sons of these people have sealed their history with his name.

All for myself the sigh would swell, The tear of anguish start; I little knew what wilder woe Had filled the Poet's heart. I did not know the nights of gloom, The days of misery; The long, long years of dark despair, That crushed and tortured thee.

Self-love seems so often unrequited.

Zu unserer Besserung bedurfen wir eines Spiegels.

We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origins. At last, we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own.

Enough had been thought, and said, and felt, and imagined. It was about time that something should be done.

'A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. You are speaking, Hman, as if the pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing. The seroni could say it better than I say it now. Not better than I could say it in a poem. What you call remembering is the last part of the pleasure, as the crah is the last part of a poem. When you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we remember it. But still we know very little about it. What it will be when I remember it as I lie down to die, what it makes in me all my days till then-that is the real meeting. The other is only the beginning of it.' [2]

I'm never going to accomplish anything; that's perfectly clear to me. I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more.

I used to always think I had to have a reason to record my observations of the day, or even my emotions, but now I think simply being alive is more than enough reason.

Still, as I mused, the naked room, The alien firelight died away; And from the midst of cheerless gloom I passed to bright, unclouded day.

It's been a long time since I've been me.

Si nous n'avions point de defauts, nous ne prendrions pas tant de plaisir a en remarquer dans les autres.

Wer mit Ungeheuern kampft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.

'Don't die like me!' (reportedly the final message of George Best)

Let me suggest a theme for you: to state to yourself precisely and completely what that walk over the mountains amounted to for you, - returning to this essay again and again, until you are satisfied that all that was important in your experience is in it. Give this good reason to yourself for having gone over the mountains, for mankind is ever going over a mountain. Don't suppose that you can tell it precisely the first dozen times you try, but at 'em again, especially when, after a sufficient pause, you suspect that you are touching the heart or summit of the matter, reiterate your blows there, and account for the mountain to yourself. Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.

Have no mean hours, but be grateful for every hour, and accept what it brings. The reality will make any sincere record respectable. No day will have been wholly misspent, if one sincere, thoughtful page has been written. Let the daily tide leave some deposit on these pages, as it leaves sand and shells on the shore. So much increase of terra firma. this may be a calendar of the ebbs and flows of the soul; and on these sheets as a beach, the waves may cast up pearls and seaweed.

I will not talk about people a thousand miles off, but come as near home as I can. As the time is short, I will leave out all the flattery, and retain all the criticism. Let us consider the way in which we spend our lives.

By always thinking unto them. ... I keep the subject constantly before me and wait till the first dawnings open little by little into the full light.

We realize that by criticizing Jewish fundamentalism we are criticizing a part of the past that we love. We wish that members of every human grouping would criticize their own past, even before criticizing others.

All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.

You've never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.

All poetry is supposed to be instructive but in an unnoticeable manner; it is supposed to make us aware of what it would be valuable to instruct ourselves in; we must deduce the lesson on our own, just as with life.

In looking back, I see nothing to regret and little to correct.

That was the dark side of me and a pretty dismal time in my life. It's like someone you used to know and wonder why things looked so ugly from his perspective. (2004)

I was married when I was 20. It was a strong bond with someone but I can't necessarily say I was in love. (1995)

Resolved, to ask myself at the end of every day, week, month and year, wherein I could possibly in any respect have done better.

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

The biggest thing has been realizing how much people really do love the early Sabbath music. People have said it in the past but I've never really believed them before. I remember years ago when Metallica opened up for me, I went backstage and they were playing old Black Sabbath albums and I thought they were taking the piss! They said, 'No, we really love Sabbath.' I couldn't see that at the time--because towards the end of my time with Sabbath 20 years ago I thought what we were doing was boring and stupid, because we were boring and stupid, totally sick of what we were doing and totally out of our brains with drink or drugs when we were playing it.

Speech is a mirror of the soul: as a man speaks, so is he.

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree Toward heaven still. And there's a barrel that I didn't fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didn't pick upon some bough. But I am done with apple-picking now.

He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.

I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn.

You look at where you're going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you've been and a pattern seems to emerge. And if you project forward from that pattern, then sometimes you can come up with something.

A people always ends by resembling its shadow.

Of all the people insistently expressing their mental vacuity, none has a better excuse for an empty head than the newspaperman: If he pauses to restock his brain, he invites onrushing headlines to trample him flat.

The road was new to me, as roads always are, going back.

Let's talk, you and I. Let's talk about fear. The house is empty as I write this; a cold February rain is falling outside. It's night. Sometimes when the wind blows the way it's blowing now, we lose the power. But for now it's on, and so let's talk very honestly about fear. Let's talk very rationally about moving to the rim of madness...and perhaps over the edge.

There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.

He was the future, once...

Now and then it occurs to one to reflect upon what slender threads of accident depend the most important circumstances of his life; to look back and shudder, realizing how close to the edge of nothingness his being has come.

Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.

It is logical to assert that all matter possesses a property which is essentially akin to sensation, the property of reflection.

Know thyself.

So the great affair is over/ but whoever would have guessed/ it would leave us all so vacant/ and so deeply unimpressed/ It's like our visit to the moon/ or to that other star/ I guess you go for nothing/ if you really want to go that far

'Like a work of art,' she repeated, looking from her canvas to the drawing-room steps and back again. She must rest for a moment. And, resting, looking from one to the other vaguely, the old question which transversed the sky of the soul perpetually, the vast, the general question which was apt to particularise itself at such moments as these, when she released faculties that had been on the strain, stood over her, paused over her, darkened over her. What is the meaning of life? That was all - a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one. This, that, and the other; herself and Charles Tansley and the breaking wave; Mrs. Ramsay bringing them together; Mrs. Ramsay saying, 'Life stand still here'; Mrs. Ramsay making of the moment something permanent (as in another sphere Lily herself tried to make of the moment something permanent) - this was of the nature of a revelation. In the midst of chaos there was shape; this eternal passing and flowing (she looked at the cloud going and the leaves shaking) was struck into stability. Life stand still here, Mrs. Ramsay said. 'Mrs. Ramsay! Mrs. Ramsay!' she repeated. She owed it all to her.

We moralise among ruins.