Selected self awareness quotes

1. How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?

2. What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.

3. One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it.

4. Do they think that I am such a damned fool as to think myself fit for President of the United States? No, sir; I know what I am fit for. I can command a body of men in a rough way, but I am not fit to be President.

5. When you come to see you are not as wise today as you thought you were yesterday, you are wiser today.

6. Sometimes you don't know if you're Caesar about to cross the Rubicon or Captain Queeg cutting your own tow line.

7. It would be easier for me to reject all established values, if I knew what they were.

8. How can you call it unreasonable when all I want is my own way?

9. Never underestimate the size and scope of my problems.

10. Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.

11. You should know me well enough by now to know I don't ask for things I don't think I can get.

12. What amazes me the most is to see that everyone is not amazed at his own weakness.

13. Take inventory of everyone with whom you have contact.

14. Look, it's one of the great mysteries of the world, I cannot answer that question. I think I'm vaguely blonde. To be perfectly frank, I don't know.

15. I'm a terrible long-term planner.

16. The worst superstition is to consider our own tolerable.

17. The man of character, sensitive to the meaning of what he is doing, will know how to discover the ethical paths in the maze of possible behavior.

18. I'm afraid I'm being an awful nuisance.

19. An empty man is full of himself.

20. Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.

21. I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.

22. Do not give sentence in another tribunal till you have been yourself judged in the tribunal of Justice.

23. A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.

24. With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.

25. Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.

26. Our quarrel with the world is an echo of the endless quarrel proceeding within us.

27. We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.

28. When we argue for our limitations, we get to keep them.

29. No such thing as a man willing to be honest - that would be like a blind man willing to see.

30. Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.

31. I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.

32. Perhaps the only true dignity of man is his capacity to despise himself.

33. Actors cannot choose the manner in which they are born. Consequently, it is the one gesture in their lives completely devoid of self-consciousness.

34. Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff. I have been called all of these. Of course, I am.

35. I've been too many places. I'm like the bad penny.

36. Seeing clearly within himself and always able to dodge around the ends of any position, including his own, Shaw assumed from the start the dual role of prophet and gadfly. To his contemporaries it appeared frivolous and contradictory to perform as both superman and socialist, sceptic and believer, legalist and heretic, high-brow and mob-orator. But feeling the duty to teach as well as to mirror mankind, Shaw did not accept himself as a contradictory being.

37. No temptation can gravitate to a man unless there is that is his heart which is capable of responding to it.

38. Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.

39. Though man a thinking being is defined, Few use the grand prerogative of mind. How few think justly of the thinking few! How many never think, who think they do!

40. Some felt I'm not academically qualified, and they're right.

41. I speak from ignorance. Who once learned much, but speaks from ignorance now.

42. Why did I come? I didn't come. I went. I wasn't coming here, to meet these people. I was leaving there. Getting away. Only I tricked myself.

43. He's not as smart as he thinks he is Yes he is. And if you doubt it, you're not as smart as you think you are.

44. Doesn't it occur to you that the very fact that you're asking me this question tells me there's something else for me to figure out, and therefore greatly increases the chance that I will figure it out?

45. It was as if Graff had read his heart and found the lie that would penetrate most deeply into his soul and told it to him.

46. She had that irony in her eyes. Knowledge without wisdom. Power without purpose. Like me.

47. Well, I wish I could tell you that Ender is like me, but Ender is very, very smart.

48. I actually worry a lot that as I get 'popular' I'll be able to get away with saying stupider stuff than I would have dared say before. This sort of thing happens to a lot of people, and I would *really* like to avoid it.

49. And when you're with yourself, oh don't let it go to your head. ~ 'Carlos (Don't Let It Go To Your Head)

50. You and I, we're two of a kind, I hate to say it but you'll never relate, what makes you tick? It makes me smile. ~ 'Just Another'

51. Pete is incredibly frustrating, yet you can't help but like him. The trouble is, he knows it.

52. Comme nos interets, nos sentiments different.

53. And you realize you're an alcoholic when you repeat yourself. You realize you're an alcoholic when you repeat yourself. You realize you're an alcoholic...oh, dammit, dammit, God DAMMIT.

54. No fault is greater than not understanding one's own fault and ignoring it and though one is a collection of faults, himself yet be concerned with the faults of others.

55. The Lord took pity on me thousands upon thousands of times, because he saw within me that I was prepared, but that I was ignorant of what to do in view of my situation; because many were trying to prevent this mission. They were talking among themselves behind my back, and saying: 'Why is this fellow throwing himself into danger among enemies who know not God?' Not from malice, but having no liking for it; likewise, as I myself can testify, they perceived my rusticity. And I was not quick to recognize the grace that was then in me; I now know that I should have done so earlier.

56. Ideology is like halitosis - it is what the other fellow has.

57. I'm calm on the outside and a flood inside.

58. Every physician, shoemaker, mechanic or educator must know his shortcomings if he is to do his work and make his living. For some decades, you have begun to play a governing role on this earth. It is on your thinking and your actions that the future of humanity depends. But your teachers and masters do not tell you how you really think and are; nobody dares to voice the one criticism of you which could make you capable of governing your own fate. You are 'free' only in one sense: free from education in governing your life yourself, free from self-criticism.

59. My intellect tells me: 'Tell the truth at any cost.' The Little Man in me says: 'It is stupid to expose oneself to the little man, to put oneself at his mercy. The Little Man does not want to hear the truth about himself. He does not want the great responsibility which is his. He wants to remain a Little Man. He wants to remain a Little Man, or wants to become a little great man. He wants to become rich, or a party leader, or commander of a legion, or secretary of the society for the abolition of vice. But he does not want to assume responsibility for his work...'

60. My superficial manners stink and my profound manners are almost as bad.

61. I think we have much more to say about what happens to us than most people believe.

62. I honestly don't believe we will be solving the greater human conflict with our efforts. The problem is not a certain type of legislation or even a certain politician; the problem is the same that it has always been. I am the problem.

63. I went there to try to get my head around this idea, this idea that the problem in the universe lives within me. I can't think of anything more progressive than the embrace of this fundamental idea.

64. 'I seem to be breaking balls or something.' (from 'The Need to Dance')

65. I would like to think there's some purity in us, yeah, naive, y'know, purposely naive.

66. Can't act, slightly bald, also dances

67. A guy told me he liked cherries...but... I waited to see if he was gonna say tomato...before i realized he likes cherries just...alright, that joke is ridiculous. That's like a carbon copy of the previous joke but with different ingredients. I don't know what i was trying to pull off there.

68. [He] always seemed to take it so personally that the universe didn't always work the way he wanted it to

69. Sister Carlotta is a nun. You'll never find a more honest person Honest people have been known to deceive themselves

70. Individual people have always been more important to her than to me. It's my weakness, that I don't have her awareness of other people's feelings

71. She knew exactly what she had done to him. And yet she couldn't quite believe that she was jerking him around

72. There's a lot of guys around who are better for you than I am

73. You may think you ashamed, but you not. Deep down in your heart. You know you done it all You don't know what I feel

74. She didn't sound glad. It irritated him a little. Hurt his feelings. But instead of going off to nurse his wounds, he merely noticed his emotions as if he were a dispassionate observer. He saw himself; important self-made man, yet at home a little boy who can be hurt, not even by a word, but by a short pause of indecision. Sensitive, sensitive, and he was amused at himself: for a moment he almost saw himself standing a few inches away, could observe even the bemused expression on his own face

75. But she could see that she had wounded him. He had been stupid, but he was smart enough to recognize the fact

76. I maintain to you, if you have any agreement with things that I have exaggerated here - if you do hate the automobile industry, if you hate Wall Street, if you hate the banks, if you hate the financial industry, if you hate the airline industry, if you hate the pharmaceutical industry, if you hate retail - if you have resentments for all these industries, and think that your only protection is government - then you really, really need to grab yourself by the wrist as hard as you can and ask yourself, 'What the hell happened to you and who made you feel this way?' The one area of the media that people respect and like in conjunction with American liberals and socialists has made you feel this way. You hate oil? Is it rational? What the hell, folks? 'That's right, Mr. Limbaugh! It's five dollars in California, four dollars elsewhere, three dollars other places. It's not right. Somebody's gouging us.' Wait a minute! I thought you guys were all hoping for high prices down the road so it would lead to conservation? You can't make liberals happy no matter what they get. Even if it's what they want, it's never enough. There's a political party, and its allies who feed off of your paranoia, feed off of your hatred for all things great in America.

77. I'm askin, as if I'm qualified to analyze/You're lookin at a bitch who specialize in tellin lies

78. A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

79. I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.

80. It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.

81. Getting up and criticising the other fellow because he's in and you are not seems to me a futile waste of time. Especially as you know in your heart that you would be doing more or less the same thing if you were in his place.

82. I cried, I don't know why:.I don't like his music or anything:.you know it's awful about his baby I just::I don't want to talk about that:..I just don't think he has very many guts::I just don't see why he wouldn't want to see his daughter grow up:you know:that he wouldn't be excited enough about that to not think of himself::people just start thinking of themselves too much. I don't think it's so much that they become conscious of the world of video and the world of this and that and a world of fame, they just think of themselves and no matter who you are and whether you're a rock star or a garbage man, if you're thinking of yourself all the time you're not gonna be very good at what you do. With a baby you can tell them funny jokes when they're two and they'll love it, you can teach them about how everyone's an idiot and they'll love it:..but you know:..it doesn't occur to a lot of people how intense that is:..how beautiful it is.

83. I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them.

84. As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.

85. I miss the comfort in being sad.

86. Wer immer in Zerstreuungen lebt, wird fremd im eigenen Herzen.

87. I hired finishers because I'm a good starter and a poor finisher.

88. We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.

89. Your best side? My dear, you're sitting on it.

90. Know thyself! A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever observes himself arrests his own development. A caterpillar who wanted to know itself well would never become a butterfly.

91. Forgive me, Kitty, they don't call me a bundle of contradictions for nothing!

92. Then comes the kicker: Say the alphabet : backwards. 'Well, shoot, you got me. I'm not drunk, but I'm obviously too stupid to be driving, God damn it.'

93. Well, yeah, sometimes I get a little too creative.

94. It is the integrity of each individual human that is in final examination. On personal integrity hangs humanity's fate. You can decieve others, you can decieve your brain-self, but you can't decieve your mind-self - for mind deals only in the discovery of truth and the interrelationship of all truths. The cosmic laws with which mind deals are noncorruptible. Cosmic evolution is omniscient God comprehensively articulate.

95. What can you ever really know of other people's souls - of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole of creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands. If there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with Him. You cannot put Him off with speculation about your neighbours or memories of what you have read in books.

96. The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.

97. I would say the world's in terrible shape, but I'm afraid the world would say, 'Look who's talking!'

98. As much as people pretend 'I fit in, I understand, I get the rules,' there are always times spent away from that where you go, 'I thought I knew. It seemed so clear to me, and then...' That sense of loneliness, or the sense of not fitting in or being out of depth, is probably the most common denominator.

99. That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.

100. You still don't know what you do well.