Integrity is congruence between what you know, what you profess, and what you do.

It is wisdom to know who you are, but not to the point of excluding who you might become.

What we say about ourselves is always a form of fiction.

Liberty is no less a blessing because oppression has so long darkened the mind that it can not appreciate it.

Irrational expectations are at the root of most human suffering.

The purpose of the false self is to defend against pain – not deal with reality

I admire how she protects her energy and understands her limitations.

I found power in accepting the truth of who I am. It may not be a truth that others can accept, but I cannot live any other way. How would it be to live a...

One is either an artist or one is not. It is not something one becomes. It is something that one is from birth. We do not study to be artists. We study to become more...

Understand that when the beast within yousucceeds again in paralyzing into unendingincompletion whatever you again had the temerity totry to makeits triumph is made sweeter by confirmation of itsrectitude. It knows that it aloneknows you.

Most people do not erode their self-esteem over big issues but over small ones, little acts of betrayal and hypocrisy forgotten (repressed) very quickly. But the computer in your subconscious mind forgets nothing. It records...

I believe I’m very normal. I’m hyper-normal. I’m more normal than anyone else I know. I think my thoughts, my indulgences, my desires, my pleasures may at first appear different, but that is only because...

There’s no weakness as great as false strength.

The answers to your problems lie all around you. The keys to your self-discovery are waiting to be found in each sunset, each pair of eyes, each breath of fresh air. Listen to the symphony...

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...

The view is endlessly fulfilling. It is like the answer to a lifetime of questions and vague cravings.

There is no method of self-knowledge. Seeking a method invariably implies the desire to attain some result – and that is what we all want. We follow authority – if not that of a person,...

Commandment #1: Believe in yourself. Commandment #2: Get over yourself.

There is no key to open the heart of another – except curiosity.

The greatest of empires, is the empire over one’s self.

Life is a conversation with yourself. And who are you if not the eternal presence behind everything that is, was, and will be? Like this, the blow of each breeze and the beauty of each...

>En cierta ocasión, ta vez cuarenta años atrás, en un hotel mugriento y anónimo al borde del Sahara en la frontera de Mauritania, me depertó el silencio al que se refería el anciano. Pero no...

I am astonished, disappointed, pleased with myself. I am distressed, depressed, rapturous. I am all these things at once and cannot add up the sum.

Sooner or later on this journey, every traveller faces the same question: Are you a human intending to be a god, or a god pretending to be human?

…you find your genius by looking in the mirror of your life. Your visible image shows your inner truth, so when you’re estimating others, what you see is what you get. It therefore becomes critically...

Distinguishing the signal from the noise requires both scientific knowledge and self-knowledge: the serenity to accept the things we cannot predict, the courage to predict the things we can, and the wisdom to know the...

Know they thyself, presume not God to scan. The proper study of mankind is man.

Pulse proximity is not intimacy.

That tide of insecurity would come in and out over the years, sometimes stranding me for a while but occasionally lifting me just beyond what I thought I could accomplish. Either way, it would wash...

Those who read books cannot understand the teachings and, what’s more, may even go astray. But those who try to observe the things going on in the mind, and always take that which is true...

We see that in the organic world, to the same degree that reflection gets darker and weaker, grace grows ever more radiant and dominant. But just as two lines intersect on one side of a...

I don’t know why, but people seem to be fascinated to learn how some members of society fall through the cracks. I think it’s partly that feeling that… it could happen to anyone. But I...

The greater a child’s terror, and the earlier it is experienced, the harder it becomes to develop a strong and healthy sense of self.

You have to learn to recognize your own depths.

The tombstone over the grave of the conscience always reads: “Human Nature”.

Self-improvement without self-love is like building a house upon sand. You can build and build, but it will always sink.

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...

It is precisely the sort of thing I am always trying to do in my writing – to present my unhappy reader with a wide-ranged chaos – of actions and reactions, thoughts, memories and feelings...

The transformation of the world is brought about by the transformation of oneself, because the self is the product and a part of the total process of human existence. To transform oneself, self-knowledge is essential;...

Wisest is she who knows she does not know.

There’s nothing lonelier than empty relationships. At least when you’re alone you can be yourself, but when you’re in empty relationships you can’t even be yourself.You can be real alone, or you can be a...

Ideally a painter (and, generally, an artist) should not become conscious of his insights: without taking the detour through his conscious reflection, his progressive steps, mysterious even to himself, should enter so swiftly into the...

It is not until you learn to look at yourself, through the truth of who you are, that you can look at someone else.

I sometimes pray not for self-knowledge in general but for just so much self knowledge at the moment as I can bear and use at the moment; the little daily dose.

To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.

Cognitive science has something of enormous importance to contribute to human freedom: the ability to learn what our unconscious conceptual systems are like and how our cognitive unconscious functions. If we do not realize that...

There’s such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is why I’m such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more comfortable,...

Reading enables me to maintain a sense of something substantive– my ethical integrity, my intellectual integrity.

I can’t overstate how little I knew about myself at 22, or how little I’d thought about what I was doing. When I graduated from college I genuinely believed that the creative life was the...

SCREW CHILDREN! That’s the mantra of the world. Instead of burying them with a national debt, shoving them in shitty schools, drugging them if they don’t comply, hitting them, yelling at them, indoctrinating them with...