Discovering Self Quotes

• For most men, life is a search for the proper Manila envelope in which to get themselves filed.

  Clifton Fadiman

  Life, Men, Finding Yourself

  8 Copy quote

• To find yourself, think for yourself.

  Socrates

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  113 Copy quote

• Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Spiritual, Knowledge, Acceptance

  "In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching". Book by Pyotr Ouspensky, 1949.

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  There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.

  Aldous Huxley

  Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

  Time Must Have a Stop (1945) ch. 7

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• People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.

  Thomas Szasz

  Life, Wisdom, Creating

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (2004). “Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary”, p.139, Transaction Publishers

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• Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

  Carl Jung

  Inspirational, Life, Beautiful

  Carl Gustav Jung (1973). “Letters”

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

  Nelson Mandela

  Inspirational, Change, Inspiring

  Nelson Mandela (2011). “Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations”, p.191, Pan Macmillan

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• The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

  Anna Quindlen

  Confidence, Letting Go, Being Yourself

  Anna Quindlen (2009). “Being Perfect”, p.15, Random House

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  Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.

  Anais Nin

  Life, Change, Failure

  "The Mirror and the Garden : Realism and Reality in the Writings of Anais Nin" by Evelyn J. Hinz, (p. 40), 1971.

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• Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes.

  Hugh Prather

  Change, Life Changing, Live Life

  Hugh Prather (2009). “Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person”, p.41, Bantam

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• The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Encouragement, Freedom, Business

  "The Power of Purpose: Find Meaning, Live Longer, Better". Book by Richard Leider, p. 35., 2010.

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• You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.

  James Anthony Froude

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  James Anthony Froude (1849). “The nemesis of faith”, p.4

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  The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

  Marcel Proust

  Inspirational, Life, Positive

  317 Copy quote

• People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.

  Saint Augustine

  Inspirational, Life, Faith

  "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius, Book X, (c. 161 - 180 AD).

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  You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.

  Alan Alda

  Inspirational, Motivational, Change

  Alan Alda's commencement speech at Connecticut College in New London, www.graduationwisdom.com. 1980.

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• Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Travel, Character

  112 Copy quote

• There is no satisfaction that can compare with looking back across the years and finding you've grown in self-control, judgment, generosity, and unselfishness.

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  Self, Years, Generosity

  29 Copy quote

• A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Friendship, Real Friends, Greatness

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.406, Library of America

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• A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.

  Jean de La Fontaine

  Fate, Journey, Destiny

  "The Fables of La Fontaine: Book VIII". Book by Jean de La Fontaine, 1678 - 1679.

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• I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Death

  Walden ch. 2 (1854)

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• Resolve to be thyself: and know that he who finds himself, loses his misery.

  Matthew Arnold

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Sadness

  'Self-Dependence' (1852) l. 31

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• One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.

  Blaise Pascal

  Inspirational, Being Yourself, Discovery

  Blaise Pascal (2013). “Pensées”, p.15, Courier Corporation

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• A leader will find it difficult to articulate a coherent vision unless it expresses his core values, his basic identity...one must first embark on the formidable journey of self-discovery in order to create a vision with authentic soul.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Leadership, Business, Journey

  20 Copy quote

• Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.

  Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

  Love, Horse, Food

  91 Copy quote

• Fear is a question. What are you afraid of and why? Our fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if we explore them.

  Marilyn French

  Fear, Self, House

  36 Copy quote