Introspection Quotes - Page 2

• I don't think there is any scientific evidence about the question of whether we think only in language or not. But introspection indicates pretty clearly that we don't think in language necessarily. We also think in visual images, we think in terms of situations and events, and so on, and many times we can't even express in words what the content of our thinking is. And even if we are able to express it in words, it is a common experience to say something and then to recognize that it is not what we meant, that it is something else.

  Noam Chomsky

  Thinking, Common Experience, Able

  Source: chomsky.info

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• The inertia of the mind urges it to slide down the easy slope of imagination, rather than to climb the steep slope of introspection.

  Marcel Proust

  Imagination, Mind, Slides

  Marcel Proust (1982). “Remembrance of Things Past: The captive. The fugitive. Time regained”, Vintage

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• To foster inner awareness, introspection, and reasoning is more efficient than meditation and prayer.

  Dalai Lama

  Prayer, Meditation, Awareness

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• ... a curious superstition. This is the belief that, if there be introspection at all, it must give exhaustive and infallible information.

  C. D. Broad

  Giving, Information, Superstitions

  C.D. Broad (2014). “The Mind and Its Place in Nature”, p.284, Routledge

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• Unlike the normal pattern, I know I have grown more liberal as I've grown older. I have become more convinced that there is room for improvement in the world.

  Red Smith

  World, Patterns, Rooms

  Red Smith (1983). “The Red Smith reader”, Vintage

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• One could argue that most of the trouble in the world is caused by introspection.

  Nick Hornby

  Pride, World, Arguing

  "A Long Way Down". Book by Nick Hornby, May 7, 2005.

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• The philosophy of the wisest man that ever existed, is mainly derived from the act of introspection.

  William Godwin

  Philosophy, Men, Wisest Man

  William Godwin (2006). “Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries”, p.385, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• We forge gradually our greatest instrument for understanding the world - introspection. We discover that humanity may resemble us very considerably - that the best way of knowing the inwardness of our neighbors is to know ourselves.

  Walter Lippmann

  Knowledge, Knowing, Understanding

  Walter Lippmann, Clinton Rossiter, James Lare (1982). “The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy”, p.135, Harvard University Press

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• If it is a virtue to love my neighbor as a human being, it must be a virtue - and not a vice - to love myself, since I am a human being too.

  Erich Fromm

  Vices, Love Myself, Virtue

  Erich Fromm (2013). “The Art of Loving”, p.63, Open Road Media

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• Withdraw into yourself and look.

  Plotinus

  Looks

  Plotinus, Elmer O'Brien (1964). “The Essential Plotinus”, p.42, Hackett Publishing

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• On the methodological issue, I think that would be hopeless to try to adjudicate between my view and orthodoxy by appeal to phenomenological introspection. We need to know about brain mechanisms.

  David Papineau

  Thinking, Views, Issues

  "Physical". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com. April 8, 2013.

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• Having children made me go down a road of serious introspection and self-examination. I think it's informed and hopefully enhanced my creativity.

  Madonna Ciccone

  Children, Creativity, Thinking

  Source: www.theguardian.com

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• Out of love you can speak with straight fury.

  Eudora Welty

  Love You, Speak, Fury

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• Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.

  Franz Kafka

  Loneliness, Being Alone, Writing

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• Don't you notice that there are particular moments when you are naturally inspired to introspection? Work with them gently, for these are the moments when you can go through a powerful experience, and your whole worldview can change quickly.

  Sogyal Rinpoche

  Powerful, Inspired, Moments

  Sogyal Rinpoche (2009). “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: The Spiritual Classic & International Bestseller: Revised and Updated Edition”, p.38, Harper Collins

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• On Laurence Olivier as Hamlet in a 1948 film: Olivier's idea of introspection was to hood his eyes, dentalize his consonants and let the camera circle his blondined head like a sparrow looking for a place to deposit its droppings.

  Robert Brustein

  Eye, Circles, Ideas

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• As long as any adult thinks that he, like the parents and teachers of old, can become introspective, invoking his own youth to understand the youth before him, he is lost.

  Margaret Mead

  Birthday, Teacher, Long Distance

  Margaret Mead (1970). “Culture and Commitment”

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• I have my moments. Ever since I was a boy, I never was someone who was at ease with happiness. Too often I embrace introspection and self-doubt. I wish I could embrace the good things.

  Hugh Laurie

  Boys, Self, Doubt

  FaceBook post by Hugh Laurie from Jan 02, 2017

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• Once I found professional happiness, it gave me time to think about other areas in my life in which I wasn't happy. The next obvious candidate for introspection was my marriage.

  Megyn Kelly

  Thinking, Next, Found

  "Megyn Kelly: Fox's Lady". Article by Julia Reed, www.harpersbazaar.com. January 4, 2013.

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• But when the self speaks to the self, who is speaking? The entombed soul, the spirit driven in, in, in to the central catacomb; the self that took the veil and left the world -- a coward perhaps, yet somehow beautiful, as it flits with its lantern restlessly up and down the dark corridors.

  Virginia Woolf

  Beautiful, Dark, Self

  Virginia Woolf (2012). “Monday or Tuesday: Eight Stories”, p.28, Courier Corporation

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• A resolute and wise refusal to take part in festivities will be an incentive for introspection and self-purification.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Wise, Self, Incentives

  Mahatma Gandhi (1949). “Communal Unity”

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• Many psychologists ... thought by turning their attention to their own consciousness to be able to explain what happened when we were thnking. Or they sought to attain the same end by asking another person a question, by means of which certain processes of thought would be excited, and then by questioning the person about the introspection he had made. It is obvious ... that nothing can be discovered in such experiments.

  Wilhelm Wundt

  Mean, Psychology, Would Be

  Wilhelm Wundt, (2013). “An Introduction to Psychology”, p.75, Read Books Ltd

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• It's a very important process of self-recognition, self-introspection, by just daily accepting our creation, accepting what is right in front of us, breathing, letting go, and coming into the heart space and knowing that that fear or the struggle is part of the illusion. Just breathe that truth, because as you breathe, it filters through and you'll find that that tightness, that intensity, the fear, the worry, will dissolve. Just allow yourself not to get stuck in that.

  Christine McCormick Day

  Letting Go, Struggle, Heart

  Source: www.edgemagazine.net

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• Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going?

  Carl Sandburg

  Self Reflection, Contemplation

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• A tough but nervous, tenacious but restless race [the Yankees]; materially ambitious, yet prone to introspection, and subject to waves of religious emotion. . . . A race whose typical member is eternally torn between a passion for righteousness and a desire to get on in the world.

  Samuel Eliot Morison

  Religious, Passion, Yankees

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