144 Self-Awareness Quotes

In the journey of personal growth and self-discovery, few things are as empowering as gaining a clear understanding of oneself. Self-awareness enables us to recognize our strengths and weaknesses, understand our emotions, and align our actions with our values. To inspire and guide you on this path, we've compiled a selection of the top 144 self-awareness quotes. These quotes, drawn from a diverse range of thinkers, philosophers, and leaders, offer profound insights and reflections that can help you deepen your self-awareness and transform your life. Let's delve into these timeless words of wisdom and uncover the truths that lie within.

1. “As you become more clear about who you really are, you'll be better able to decide what is best for you - the first time around.” - Oprah Winfrey

2. “At the center of your beingyou have the answer;you know who you areand you know what you want.” - Lao Tzu

3. “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” - Carl Gustav Jung

4. “To say "I love you" one must know first how to say the "I".” - Ayn Rand

5. “I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.” - Hermann Hesse

6. “Indecision may or may not be my problem.” - Jimmy Buffett

7. “Don't compromise yourself. You're all you've got.” - Janis Joplin

8. “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” - Carl R. Rogers

9. “She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she was not wise yet.” - Jane Austen

10. “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.” - Charlotte Brontë

11. “I did not tell Fat this, but technically he had become a Buddha. It did not seem to me like a good idea to let him know. After all, if you are a Buddha you should be able to figure it out for yourself.” - Philip K. Dick

12. “For it is in your power to retire into yourself whenever you choose.” - Marcus Aurelius

13. “How to get rid of ego as dictator and turn it into messenger and servant and scout, to be in your service, is the trick.” - Joseph Campbell

14. “Self-awareness is probably overrated. A complex, self-regulating system doesn't need it in order to be successful, or even smart.” - David Brin

15. “All depression has its roots in self-pity, and all self-pity is rooted in people taking themselves too seriously.”At the time Switters had disputed her assertion. Even at seventeen, he was aware that depression could have chemical causes.“The key word here is roots,” Maestra had countered. “The roots of depression. For most people, self-awareness and self-pity blossom simultaneously in early adolescence. It's about that time that we start viewing the world as something other than a whoop-de-doo playground, we start to experience personally how threatening it can be, how cruel and unjust. At the very moment when we become, for the first time, both introspective and socially conscientious, we receive the bad news that the world, by and large, doesn't give a rat's ass. Even an old tomato like me can recall how painful, scary, and disillusioning that realization was. So, there's a tendency, then, to slip into rage and self-pity, which if indulged, can fester into bouts of depression.”“Yeah but Maestra—”“Don't interrupt. Now, unless someone stronger and wiser—a friend, a parent, a novelist, filmmaker, teacher, or musician—can josh us out of it, can elevate us and show us how petty and pompous and monumentally useless it is to take ourselves so seriously, then depression can become a habit, which, in tern, can produce a neurological imprint. Are you with me? Gradually, our brain chemistry becomes conditioned to react to negative stimuli in a particular, predictable way. One thing'll go wrong and it'll automatically switch on its blender and mix us that black cocktail, the ol’ doomsday daiquiri, and before we know it, we’re soused to the gills from the inside out. Once depression has become electrochemically integrated, it can be extremely difficult to philosophically or psychologically override it; by then it's playing by physical rules, a whole different ball game. That's why, Switters my dearest, every time you've shown signs of feeling sorry for yourself, I've played my blues records really loud or read to you from The Horse’s Mouth. And that’s why when you’ve exhibited the slightest tendency toward self-importance, I’ve reminded you that you and me— you and I: excuse me—may be every bit as important as the President or the pope or the biggest prime-time icon in Hollywood, but none of us is much more than a pimple on the ass-end of creation, so let’s not get carried away with ourselves. Preventive medicine, boy. It’s preventive medicine.”“But what about self-esteem?”“Heh! Self-esteem is for sissies. Accept that you’re a pimple and try to keep a lively sense of humor about it. That way lies grace—and maybe even glory.” - Tom Robbins

16. “I am sure it is everyone’s experience, as it has been mine, that any discovery we make about ourselves or the meaning of life is never, like a scientific discovery, a coming upon something entirely new and unsuspected; it is rather, the coming to conscious recognition of something, which we really knew all the time but, because we were unwilling to formulate it correctly, we did not hitherto know we knew.” - W.H. Auden

17. “You don't need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!” - John Lennon

18. “I only know as much about myself as my mind can work out under its current conditions. And its current conditions are not good.” - Douglas Adams

19. “The mind's first step to self-awareness must be through the body.” - George Sheehan

20. “Maybe from as early as when you're five or six, there's been a whisper going at the back of your head, saying: “One day, maybe not so long from now, you'll get to know how it feels.” So you're waiting, even if you don't quite know it, waiting for the moment when you realise that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like Madame, who don't hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you – of how you were brought into this world and why – and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs. The first time you glimpse yourself through the eyes of a person like that, it's a cold moment. It's like walking past a mirror you've walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange.” - Kazuo Ishiguro

21. “Part of the problem with the word 'disabilities' is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can't feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren't able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities.” - Fred Rogers

22. “The Way to do is to be.” - Lao Tzu

23. “Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.” - Marcel Proust

24. “She might be without country, without nation, but inside her there was still a being that could exist and be free, that could simply say I am without adding a this, or a that, without saying I am Indian, Guyanese, English, or anything else in the world.” - Sharon Maas

25. “If theater is ritual, then dance is too... It's as if the threads connecting us to the rest of the world were washed clean of preconceptions and fears. When you dance, you can enjoy the luxury of being you.” - Paulo Coelho

26. “Jimmy put in a word and told them that if I made it, I wouldn't be able to live with myself without paying them back. That I'd sooner die than owe anyone money for helping me. Apparently Jimmy knew more about me at that point than I knew about myself.” - Craig Ferguson

27. “There are things you don't want to know you can do” - Robin McKinley

28. “I think that's the real loss of innocence: the first time you glimpse the boundaries that will limit your potential.” - Steve Toltz

29. “True joy comes from operating with Inner-directedness and recognizing who you are.” - Sanaya Roman

30. “I will no longer wound myself with the thoughts and questions that have surrounded me like thorns: that is a penance You do not ask of me.” - Thomas Merton

31. “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” - Charlotte Brontë

32. “History, writing, infect after a time a man's sense of himself...” - A. S. Byatt

33. “[H]is mouth pursed, but pursed in American, more generous than English pursing, ready for broader vowels and less mincing sounds. His body was long and lean and trim; he had American hips, ready for a neat belt and the faraway ghost of a gunbelt.” - A. S. Byatt

34. “Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one's awareness of one's ignorance.” - Anthony de Mello

35. “The splinter in your eye is the best magnifying-glass available.” - theodor w. adorno

36. “A man who denies his past is a man who truly denies himself a future, for he refuses to know himself, and to deny knowledge of oneself is to stumble through life as handicapped as the blind mute.” - Tobsha Learner

37. “Once you've recognized your own limits, you've raised yourself to a higher level of being, since you're closer to the real you...” - Banana Yoshimoto

38. “We stay busy so we don't have to admit we don't have all the answers. After long enough with our constant distractions, we end our search for them. And God. Soon enough, we'll all come to realize we can't be God. We'll settle for telling ourselves we can. Or we'll just make one up.” - Brian Krans

39. “The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” - Michel de Montaigne

40. “When you're different, sometimes you don't see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn't.” - Jodi Picoult

41. “If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.” - Amit Ray

42. “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.” - Pico Iyer

43. “All we do is to look after the opinions and learning of others: we ought to make them our own.” - Michel de Montaigne

44. “In a world of chance is there a better and a worse? We yield to a stranger's embrace or give ourselves to the waves; for the blink of an eyelid our vigilance relaxes; we are asleep; and when we awake, we have lost the direction of our lives. What are these blinks of an eyelid, against which the only defence is an eternal and inhuman wakefulness? Might they not be the cracks and chinks through which another voice, other voices, speak in our lives? By what right do we close our ears to them?” - J.M. Coetzee

45. “Have love for your inner Self and everything else is done for you.” - Amit Ray

46. “I think that we are like stars. Something happens to burst us open; but when we burst open and think we are dying; we’re actually turning into a supernova. And then when we look at ourselves again, we see that we’re suddenly more beautiful than we ever were before!” - C. JoyBell C.

47. “She wasn't tracking down her father to learn more about him. She was tracking him down to learn more about herself.” - Brad Meltzer

48. “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such a violent reaction against it?... Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if i did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus, in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist - in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality - namely my idea of justice - was full of sense. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never have known it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.” - C.S. Lewis

49. “The only person who can pull me down is myself, and I'm not going to let myself pull me down anymore.” - C. JoyBell C.

50. “Wit and puns aren't just decor in the mind; they're essential signs that the mind knows it's on, recognizes its own software, can spot the bugs in its own program.” - Adam Gopnik

51. “Poor Father, I see his final exploration. He arrives at the new place, his hair risen in astonishment, his mouth and eyes dumb. His toe scuffs a soft storm of sand, he kneels and his arms spread in pantomimic celebration, the immigrant, as in every moment of his life, arriving eternally on the shore of his Self.” - E.L. Doctorow

52. “Without awareness, we are not truly alive.” - James F. T. Bugental

53. “‎"The more we search for ourselves, the less likely we are to find ourselves; and the more we search for God, and to serve our fellow-men, the more profoundly will we become acquainted with ourselves, and the more inwardly assured. This is one of the great spiritual laws of life." (From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, February 18, 1954)” - Shoghi Effendi

54. “You need to remember that. If you’re to have decent lives, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you, every one of you.” - Kazuo Ishiguro

55. “The need to prove who you are will vanish once you know who you are.” - Danielle Pierre

56. “I suffer because my interactions with others do not meet the expectations I did not know I had.” - Jim McDonald

57. “The gift of willingness is the only thing that stands between the quiet desperation of a disingenuous life and the actualization of unexpressed potential.” - Jim McDonald

58. “I think....you still have no idea. The effect you can have.” - Suzanne Collins

59. “I have realized; it is during the times I am far outside my element that I experience myself the most. That I see and feel who I really am, the most! I think that's what a comet is like, you see, a comet is born in the outer realms of the universe! But it's only when it ventures too close to our sun or to other stars that it releases the blazing "tail" behind it and shoots brazen through the heavens! And meteors become sucked into our atmosphere before they burst like firecrackers and realize that they're shooting stars! That's why I enjoy taking myself out of my own element, my own comfort zone, and hurling myself out into the unknown. Because it's during those scary moments, those unsure steps taken, that I am able to see that I'm like a comet hitting a new atmosphere: suddenly I illuminate magnificently and fire dusts begin to fall off of me! I discover a smile I didn't know I had, I uncover a feeling that I didn't know existed in me... I see myself. I'm a shooting star. A meteor shower. But I'm not going to die out. I guess I'm more like a comet then. I'm just going to keep on coming back.” - C. JoyBell C.

60. “We judge others instantly by their clothes, their cars, their appearance, their race, their education, their social status. The list is endless. What gets me is that most people decide who another person is before they have even spoken to them. What's even worse is that these same people decide who someone else is, and don't even know who they are themselves.” - Ashly Lorenzana

61. “How shall I ever learn who I am when there is so much of me that belongs to someone else?” - Madeline Claire Franklin

62. “Nothing will shake a man-or at any rate a man like me-out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself.” - C.S. Lewis

63. “I didn't know I had it in me. There's more to all of us than we realize. Life is so much bigger, grander, higher, and wider than we allow ourselves to think. We're capable of so much more than we allow ourselves to believe.” - Queen Latifah

64. “...She expected people to accept her for who she was. But she never really accepted herself.” - Sandra Kitt

65. “I looked at him nonplussed. I realized that I have spent so many years being on a diet that the idea that you might actually need calories to survive has been completely wiped out of my consciousness. Have reached point where believe nutritional ideal is to eat nothing at all, and that the only reason people eat is because they are so greedy they cannot stop themselves from breaking out and ruining their diets.” - Helen Fielding

66. “She had been struck by the figure of a woman's back in a mirror. She stopped and looked. The dress the figure wore was the color called ashes of roses, and Ada stood, held in place by a sharp stitch of envy or th woman's dress and the fine shape of her back and her thick dark hair and the sense of assurance she seemed to evidence in her very posture.Then Ada took a step forward, and the other woman did too, and Ada realized that it was herself she was admiring, the mirror having caught the reflection of an opposite mirror on the wall behind her. The light of the lamps and the tint of the mirrors had conspired to shift colors, bleaching mauve to rose. She climbed the steps to her room and prepared for bed, but she slept poorly that night, for the music went on until dawn. As she lay awake she thought how odd it had felt to win her own endorsement.” - Charles Frazier

67. “Self-awareness of one’s faults, far from being the first step to growth, is very often the second foot in the mud.” - Bauvard

68. “I'd been so fascinated by the notion, that I'd forgotten to measure what it was bringing forth. I'd been asleep, dreaming.” - Ralph Ellison

69. “Reading is not simply an intellectual pursuit but an emotional and spiritual one. It lights the candle in the hurricane lamp of self; that's why it survives."[Turning the Page: The future of reading is backlit and bright, Newsweek Magazine, March 25, 2010]” - Anna Quindlen

70. “To remember oneself and to relax the body is something we have to do constantly.” - Samael Aun Weor

71. “Deep within, there is something profoundly known, not consciously, but subconsciously. A quiet truth, that is not a version of something, but an original knowing. What this, absolute, truth [identity] is may be none of our business…but it is there, guiding us along the path of greater becoming; a true awareness. It is so self-sustaining that our recognition of it is not required. We are offspring’s of such a powerfully divine force – Creator of all things known and unknown.” - T.F. Hodge

72. “People are always doing things for my sake and strangely enough, I'm the one who suffers for it.” - Robert Masello

73. “Sometimes it takes more than shouting it to show your pride. It takes more than a sign, a fabulous outfit, or a month of parades. Pride has to resonate from within; shine out to everyone around you. It has mean something to you and only you first before you announce it to the world.” - Solange nicole

74. “Of course, I am interested, but I would not dare to talk about them. In talking about the impact of ideas in one field on ideas in another field, one is always apt to make a fool of oneself. In these days of specialization there are too few people who have such a deep understanding of two departments of our knowledge that they do not make fools of themselves in one or the other.” - Richard P. Feynman

75. “Od onog ondašnjeg čovjeka ja sam se, i to upravo zbog onog doživljaja, potpuno odvojio, promatram ga sa strane, sasvim mirno i hladno, i mogu ga opisati kao prijatelja o kojem znam mnogo i sve ono što je bitno, ali ja uopće više nisam taj čovjek. Mogao bih pričati o njemu, prekoravati ga ili ga osuđivati a da uopće ne osjetim da je on jednom bio sastavni dio mene.” - Stefan Zweig

76. “Just take this as a warning. Know that there's always a price for not being yourself.” - Benilde Little

77. “Being spontaneous is being able to respond with confidence; calmly trusting that, whatever the outcome, you will have a positive if challenging experience that will lead to greater self-awareness and success.” - Sylvia Clare

78. “A lot of things are inherent in life -change, birth, death, aging, illness, accidents, calamities, and losses of all kinds- but these events don't have to be the cause of ongoing suffering. Yes, these events cause grief and sadness, but grief and sadness pass, like everything else, and are replaced with other experiences. The ego, however, clings to negative thoughts and feelings and, as a result, magnifies, intensifies, and sustains those emotions while the ego overlooks the subtle feelings of joy, gratitude, excitement, adventure, love, and peace that come from Essence. If we dwelt on these positive states as much as we generally dwell on our negative thoughts and painful emotions, our lives would be transformed.” - Gina Lake

79. “If I ever leave this place-I'll make sure I'm better HERE first.” - Markus Zusak

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

81. “In yourself right now is all the place you've got.” - Flannery O'Connor

82. “A life without regret can be attained by full awareness of one's actions in their present moment.” - Michelle D. Rosado

83. “She was looking for something I could never give her." Again his dark eyes bored into Julia's mind. "You have something of the same about you, young woman. Take my advice: Don't think you will find it in another person. You won't. It's not there. You must find it in yourself.” - Iain Pears

84. “I don't want someone to believe my lies, I need someone to accept my truths.” - Kellie Elmore

85. “There is no such thing as self-awareness. Imagine thought retreating into itself to think about itself. It would be easier to imagine a revolver bullet extracting itself from its victim's wound and re-entering the barrel. Yes, it would be easier to imagine the universe's explosion suddenly halting its outflow of energy, so that the galaxies congeal once more, and the millions of light-years of their flight through space are immediately annulled.” - j.m.g. le clezio

86. “التفكير هو الذي جعل الإنسان يتطور. فالإنسان تطور عندما أدرك ما الذي حوله. عندما فهم. وحلل. وربط واكتشف. وأول ما اكتشف: ذاته..” - أنيس منصور

87. “Though you might conquer in battle A thousand times a thousand men,You're the greatest battle-winner If you conquer just one - yourself.” - Anonymous

88. “I should learn from today and make tomorrow better.” - Toni Sorenson

89. “I am not a little bit of many things; but I am the sufficient representation of many things. I am not an incompletion of all these races; but I am a masterpiece of the prolific. I am an entirety, I am not a lack of anything; rather I am a whole of many things. God did not see it needful to make me generic. He thinks I am better than that.” - C. JoyBell C.

90. “The first and most important person you must believe in is yourself.” - Toni Sorenson

91. “It’s a sort of furtiveness … Like we were a generation of furtive. You know, with an inner knowledge there’s no use flaunting on that level, the level of the ‘public’, a kind of beatness – I mean, being right down to it, to ourselves, because we all really know where we are – and a weariness with all the forms, all the conventions of the world … It’s something like that. So I guess you might say we’re a beat generation.” - Jack Kerouac

92. “The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder.” - Jim Morrison

93. “Before you can be effective in communication with ANYONE else, you must know who YOU are. It begins with you. Believe me when I say, I don't need anyone's approval in this classroom ... I'm great company for myself. Me, myself, and I ... we laugh a lot. (Said on the first week of class each phase, somewhat rewording each time, but the gist is always there).” - Dacia Wilkinson

94. “Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.” - Andre Malraux

95. “Self-knowledge is the only basis of true knowledge.” - John Taylor Gatto

96. “Our parents can show us a lot of things: they can show us how we are to be and what things we ought to strive for, or they can show us how not to be and what things we ought to stray from, then you may have the kind of parents that show you all the things about you that you want to get rid of and you realize those traits aren't yours at all but are merely your parents' marks that have rubbed off onto you.” - C. JoyBell C.

97. “If you walk on sunlight, bathe in moonlight, breathe in a golden air and exhale a Midas' touch; mark my words, those who exist in the shadows will try to pull you into the darkness with them. The last thing that they want is for you to see the wonder of your life because they can't see theirs.” - C. JoyBell C.

98. “If you swim effortlessly in the deep oceans, ride the waves to and from the shore, if you can breathe under water and dine on the deep treasures of the seas; mark my words, those who dwell on the rocks carrying nets will try to reel you into their catch. The last thing they want is for you to thrive in your habitat because they stand in their atmosphere where they beg and gasp for some air.” - C. JoyBell C.

99. “Ogni uomo ha le sue bestie che se ne stanno in agguato al buio, e le sue maschere per nasconderle. E scatenarle fuori di sé nel mondo non è una via per liberarsene. Quindi sì, vivrò ancora con loro, per tutto il tempo che mi resta da vivere. Ma, se potrò impedirlo, non saranno più loro a guidarmi la mano.” - Luca Tarenzi

100. “Therefore do not deceive yourself! Of all deceivers fear most yourself!” - Søren Kierkegaard

101. “There is no adversity that cannot bear a gift and no gift that cannot bring adversity.” - Mollie Marti

102. “Fue adondo a mi me perdieronquw logre por fin encontrarme?Was it where they lost methat I finally found myself?” - Pablo Neruda

103. “You don’t know anyone at the party, so you don’t want to go. You don’t like cottage cheese, so you haven’t eaten it in years. This is your choice, of course, but don’t kid yourself: it’s also the flinch. Your personality is not set in stone. You may think a morning coffee is the most enjoyable thing in the world, but it’s really just a habit. Thirty days without it, and you would be fine. You think you have a soul mate, but in fact you could have had any number of spouses. You would have evolved differently, but been just as happy.You can change what you want about yourself at any time. You see yourself as someone who can’t write or play an instrument, who gives in to temptation or makes bad decisions, but that’s really not you. It’s not ingrained. It’s not your personality. Your personality is something else, something deeper than just preferences, and these details on the surface, you can change anytime you like.If it is useful to do so, you must abandon your identity and start again. Sometimes, it’s the only way.Set fire to your old self. It’s not needed here. It’s too busy shopping, gossiping about others, and watching days go by and asking why you haven’t gotten as far as you’d like. This old self will die and be forgotten by all but family, and replaced by someone who makes a difference.Your new self is not like that. Your new self is the Great Chicago Fire—overwhelming, overpowering, and destroying everything that isn’t necessary.” - Julien Smith

104. “A mind is a simulation that simulates itself.” - Erol Ozan

105. “The enemy is within, and within stays within, and we can’t get out of within.” - Arthur Miller

106. “Recognize that there's something AMAZING about you. Everyone has something that comes very natural for them - natural gifts and talents. That gift/talent is that thing or things that comes easy for you, but hard for most. The greatness that is stored within was given to you, because it was meant to be used. Whether you've been running from it or haven't discovered it yet, it's there. It's your job to discover and master it. It wasn't given to you in vain, it's part of your purpose.” - Yvonne Pierre

107. “There are mighty few people who think what they think they think.” - Robert Henri

108. “It isn't until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are - not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within - that you can begin to take control.” - Oprah Winfrey

109. “I have at least the whole of my life to answer a question: Who am I? And who is the other? A gust of wind at dawn? A motionless landscape? A trembling leaf? A coil of white smoke above a mountain? I write all these words and I hear the wind, not outside, but inside my head. A strong wind, it rattles the shutters through which I enter the dream.” - Tahar Ben Jelloun

110. “I have seen myself backward.” - Philip K. Dick

111. “We seek God so earnestly, Eliav reflected, not to find Him but to discover ourselves.” - James A. Michener

112. “What people say and feel about you when you've left a room is precisely your job while you are in it.” - Rasheed Ogunlaru

113. “One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself, / And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten / million years, / I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.” - Walt Whitman

114. “The eye of your mind—your intelligence; the eye of your heart—your conscience; and the eye of your soul—your instinct.” - Melissa McPhail

115. “When you are an outcast, even a tossed stone can be cherished.” - Mitch Albom

116. “I am.I'm here.I'm me.You are the mystery. ” - Richelle E. Goodrich

117. “Je sais qu'on ne peut jamais se connaître, mais seulement se raconter.” - Simone de Beauvoir

118. “One makes discoveries about oneself but more often one makes up discoveries.” - Sara Levine

119. “Hypocrisy is wretched because the hypocrite says with his tongue what is not in his heart. He wrongs his tongue and oppresses his heart. But if the heart is sound, the condition of the tongue follows suit. We are commanded to be upright in speech, which is a gauge of the heart's state.” - Hamza Yusuf

120. “Was this new self awareness a gift or a curse?” - D. Morgenstern

121. “Only themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves,As souls only understand souls.” - Walt Whitman

122. “As the leaf takes its time finding the ground so must I.” - Cory Basil

123. “Fear is self-awareness raised to a higher level.” - Don DeLillo

124. “Only you can take inner freedom away from yourself, or give it to yourself. Nobody else can.” - Michael A. Singer

125. “What did she do that made her happy? The question implied action, a conscious purpose. She did many things in a day, and many things made her happy, but that, Claire could tell, wasn’t the issue. Nor the only one, Claire realized. Because in order to consciously do something that made you happy, you’d have to know who you were. Trying to figure that out these days was like fishing on a lake on a moonless night—you had no idea what you would get.” - Erica Bauermeister

126. “The destination isn't in finding yourself. The destination is in the search.” - Thomas Warfield

127. “Enlightenment is not about cocooning one’s self, but about integrating more fully with both your self and life.” - jay woodman

128. “The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize."[Modernism's Patriarch (Time Magazine, June 10, 1996)]” - Robert Hughes

129. “Tener opiniones es estar vendido a uno mismo. No tener opiniones es existir. Tener todas las opiniones es ser poeta.” - Fernando Pessoa

130. “Things may need to stay in the darkness for some time. There is power in darkness: the power of gestation, deep dreaming, and the sweetness of night. However, sometimes darkness obscures our vision, making it difficult to see some of our very important parts. And sometimes darkness is a messy closet into which we shove things we can't quite get rid of, but don't know how to use anymore.” - T Thorn Coyle

131. “Who you are is a mystery no one can answer, not even you.” - Jamaica Kincaid

132. “I love, because my love is not dependent on the object of love. My love is dependent on my state of being. So whether the other person changes, becomes different, friend turns into a foe, does not matter, because my love was never dependent on the other person. My love is my state of being. I simply love.” - Osho

133. “To understand yourself: Is that a discovery or a creation?” - Pascal Mercier

134. “To stand by yourself -- that was also part of dignity. That way, a person could get through a public flaying with dignity. Galileo. Luther. Even somebody who admitted his guilt and resisted the temptation to deny it. Something politicians couldn't do. Honesty, the courage for honesty. With others and yourself.” - Pascal Mercier

135. “From "Wetness and Water"How does a part of the world leave the world?How can wetness leave water?Do not try to put out a fireby throwing on more fire.Do not wash a wound with blood.No matter how fast you run,your shadow more than keeps up.Sometimes it's in front.Only full, overhead sundiminishes your shadow.But that shadow has been serving you.What hurts you blesses you.Darkness is your candle.Your boundaries are your quest.” - Rumi

136. “When you assess your own life, consider it with the eye of a gardener. Underneath the surface lies rich, fertile soil waiting to nurture the seeds you sow. Even more than you can imagine will grow there if given a chance.” - Steve Goodier

137. “When we commit daily to offering our love, living in integrity, truth and values, we are more easily in tune to live our purpose …. We live our ethical life in all aspects; family, friends and business. Our spirit and body are always with us. In IHood, we choose to honor spiritual behavior over that of our body.” - Jill Little

138. “Your heart is who you are, all else follows. Guard your heart, Thomas. Guard your heart.” - Liam Perrin

139. “Maturity: knowing where you're crazy, trying to warn others of the fact and striving to keep yourself under control.” - Alain De Botton

140. “There are a lot of black-hearted, mean-spirited bastards in the world. It's important that we hold them to acount. But always remember that you might be the most black-hearted and mean-spirited in the lot, so hold yourself the most accountable of all.” - Darren Shan

141. “Separate yourself from the lies and illusions which are not you.” - Bryant McGill

142. “One of the few blessings of living in an age of anxiety is that we are forced to become aware of ourselves.” - Rollo May

143. “You're surrounded by people and voices and noises, but there you are, alone and trembling inside. And you want to be invisible. (thinking) Please, don't notice me.” - Kellie Elmore

144. “It...whatever 'it' is, has swallowed me and I lie here in the pit of its cold dark stomach being eaten alive by its bile and I...I don't even know if I want to be saved.” - Kellie Elmore