I had never thought much of genealogy. A lot of wasted time collecting the names of the dead. Then stringing those names, like skulls upon a wire, into an entirely private and thus irrelevant narrative,...

The greater the gap between self perception and reality, the more aggression is unleashed on those who point out the discrepancy.

Everything is music for the born musician.

Who can see inside the deepest recesses of your imagination and manifest those wishes into your daily experience? Who can appreciate those subtle nuances of character you’ve acquired by overcoming your deepest fears? Who can...

The essence of the charge made against the modern high-status ideal is that it is guilty of effecting a gigantic distortion of priorities, of elevating to the highest level of achievement a process of material...

What a man finds circa se or sub se is overwhelming in amount, what he finds in se is embarassing in its obscurity, but when from his own being he would obtain light as to...

My ignorance is essential. I do not write what I know but what I need to know.

Without self-knowledge you have no root in yourselves personally; you may endure for a time, but under affliction or persecution your faith will not last. This is why many in this age (and in every...

Does it not occur to people that I might be artificial by nature?

The vast majority of people are unthinking prejudice machines.

To know someone, we must experience him, and that knowing will not exceed our self-knowledge—we cannot know someone else to a greater depth than we know ourselves.

The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.

In my early professional years I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship...

There are some people who through hurts do not feel they are good enough and this is a destroyer of their self-images. As a true believer of your dream, you need to see yourself as...

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.

Self-esteem is not a luxury; it is a profound spiritual need.

You must remember what you are and what you have chosen to become, and the significance of what you are doing. There are wars and defeats and victories of human race that are not military...

Baseless victimhood is usually the last stage before outright aggression.

But the character of the music emphasized the tale as allegory–humorous, poignant, humane allegory–disclosing the metamorphosis of life itself, in which man moves from confident inexperience through the bitterness of experience, toward the rueful wisdom...

Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.

If Christ were born in Bethlehem a thousand times and not in thee thyself; then art thou lost eternally.

Our instrumental part in the symphony of life is to allow love to create a space within our own awareness, through which the undreamed mystery may emerge as a knowable reality.

The politeness which she had been brought up to practice as a duty made it impossible for her to escape; while the want of that higher species of self-command, that just consideration of others, that...

Whether he was acting ill or well he did not know, and far from laying down the law about it, he now avoided talking or thinking about it. Thinking about it led him into doubts...

Vengeance against predators is meals on wheels.

Presque tous les malheurs de la vie viennent des fausses idées que nous avons sur ce qui nous arrive. Connaître à fond les hommes, juger sainement des événements, est donc un grand pas vers le...

You are not who you think you are. You are not your fears, your thoughts, or your body. You are not your insecurities, your career, or your memories. You’re not what you’re criticized for and...

Someone responding to intuition, to chance and fortune, often can’t explain himself well.

You read and write and sing and experience, thinking that one day these things will build the character you admire to live as. You love and lose and bleed best you can, to the extreme,...

I know everything except myself

The knowledge of ourselves, therefore, is not only an incitement to seek after God, but likewise a considerable assistance towards finding him.

The goal of intellectual life should be to see and understand what is true, not merely to adhere to a prevailing orthodoxy.

When people encounter the free market and they recoil or react negatively to it, they’re merely confessing that voluntaryism, trade and negotiation are foreign and threatening to them, which tells you everything about how tragically...

The interdependent couple is the new setting and their knowledge of Self is an ancient treasure.”-Serena Jade

To prove to [her friend, Swedish diplomat Count] Gyllenborg that she was not superficial, Catherine composed an essay about herself, “so that he would see whether I knew myself or not.” The next day, she...

I am my own biggest critic. Before anyone else has criticized me, I have already criticized myself. But for the rest of my life, I am going to be with me and I don’t want...

I’ve learned far too much to know everything.

Try looking into that place where you dare not look! You’ll find me there, staring out at you!

The idea of original sin–of guilt with no possibility of innocence, no freedom of choice, no alternatives–inherently militates against self-esteem. The very notion of guilt without volition or responsibility is an assault on reason as...

Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.

Excuses are a promise of repetition.

No one knows more about the way you think than you do.

Class is an aura of confidence that is being sure without being cocky. Class has nothing to do with money. Class never runs scared. It is self-discipline and self-knowledge. It’s the sure-footedness that comes with...

If he stays inside himself, if he is contained within his nature as he is participant in the larger force, he will be able to listen, and his hearing through himself will give him secrets...

Some days I tell myself that my mission is to say something about the art and sometimes the bliss of limitation. And the legibility of landscape. Other days are more dismal. As if I were...

He knows the universe and does not know himself.

Ask not of things to shed their veils. Unveil yourselves, and things will be unveiled.

When people have invested their identities into clichés, the only counter argument they have is ‘being offended’.

How was I to be a scientist, father Lion?’ Science is knowing. What could I have known? Others always did the knowing, knew what was in me, what should come out of me, what was...

Our inner wisdom is persistent, but quiet. It will always whisper, but it will never stop knocking at your door.