Self-examination Quotes

• The examined life is no picnic.

  Robert Fulghum

  Picnics, Life Is, Examined Life

  Robert Fulghum (2004). “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things”, p.10, Ballantine Books

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• Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

  Aristotle

  Inspirational, Wisdom, Business

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• Self examination is the key to insight, which is the key to wisdom

  M. Scott Peck

  Healing, Keys, Self

  M. Scott Peck (2010). “The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace”, p.66, Simon and Schuster

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• The journey into self-love and self-acceptance must begin with self-examination. ... until you take the journey of self-reflection, it is almost impossible to grow or learn in life.

  Iyanla Vanzant

  Acceptance, Reflection, Journey

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• There is no greater delight than to be conscious of sincerity on self-examination.

  Mencius

  Self, Delight, Examination

  Mencius, James Legge (1875). “The Life and Works of Mencius: With Essays and Notes”, p.345

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• Nothing will make us so charitable and tender to the faults of others, as, by self-examination, thoroughly to know our own.

  Francois Fenelon

  Self, Examination, Faults

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• The unexamined life is not worth living.

  Socrates

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  In Plato 'Apology' 38a

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• You will never be an inwardly religious and devout man unless you pass over in silence the shortcomings of your fellow men, and diligently examine your own weaknesses.

  Thomas a Kempis

  Religious, Men, Silence

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• It is easy to look down on others; to look down on ourselves is the difficulty.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Looks, Easy, Difficulty

  Walter Savage Landor (1856). “Selections from the Writings of Walter Savage Landor”, p.211

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• You must be willing to examine and explore your dark side. You must acknowledge how bad you can be and how horribly unloving you can behave. When you know how deep and dark your dark side is, it helps you stand a little taller in the light.

  Iyanla Vanzant

  Dark, Light, Loving You

  FaceBook post by Iyanla Vanzant from Jan 16, 2016

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• What does a life of total dedication to truth mean? It means, first of all, a life of continuous and never-ending stringent self-examination. We know the world only through our relationship to it. Therefore, to know the world, we must not only examine it but we must simultaneously examine the examiner.

  M. Scott Peck

  Mean, Dedication, Self

  M. Scott Peck (2002). “The Road Less Traveled, 25th Anniversary Edition: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

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• 

  Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

  Carl Jung

  Relationship, Leadership, Spiritual

  Carl Gustav Jung (1973). “Memories, dreams, reflections”, Random House Inc

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• All of us must come to an honest, open self-examination, an awareness within as to who and what we want to be.

  M. Russell Ballard

  Self, Priorities, Examination

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• There are two persons in the world we never see as they are,--one's self and one's other self.

  Arsene Houssaye

  Self, Two, World

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• He who knows himself knows others.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Knows

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• When something bad happens is when you really learn. It causes self-examination, it causes you to take a look at yourself. You naturally start analyzing. It's not that you're wrong; it's that sometimes you just need to make adjustments. Change your way of thinking, change your way of doing, change your way of choosing.

  Jennifer Lopez

  Thinking, Self, Analyzing

  "Jennifer Lopez: The All-Star". Interview with Jane Fonda, www.glamour.com. October 31, 2011.

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• Self-examination is the process of accountability to your soul...It is far better to "become" your truth than to speak your truth. Self-examination is the practice of becoming your truth.

  Caroline Myss

  Practice, Self, Accountability

  "Entering the Castle: An Inner Path to God and Your Soul". Book by Caroline Myss, 2007.

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• There are times when those eyes inside your brain stare back at you.

  Charles Bukowski

  Eye, Brain, Realizing

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• Summe up at night what thou hast done by day; And in the morning what thou hast to do. Dresse and undresse thy soul; mark the decay And growth of it; if, with thy watch, that too Be down then winde up both; since we shall be Most surely judg'd, make thy accounts agree.

  George Herbert

  Morning, Night, Soul

  George Herbert (1861). “The Poetical Works of G. H. and R. Heber. With Memoir”, p.16

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• If any speak ill of thee, fly home to thy own conscience and examine thy heart. If thou art guilty, it is a just correction; if not guilty, it is a fair instruction.

  George Herbert

  Art, Home, Speak

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• It belongs to every large nature, when it is not under the immediate power of some strong unquestioning emotion, to suspect itself, and doubt the truth of its own impressions, conscious of possibilities beyond its own horizon.

  George Eliot

  Strong, Doubt, Horizon

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.1328, Delphi Classics

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• One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Stars, Knowledge, Acceptance

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.38, Simon and Schuster

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• Some of the things you believe were never true. They were someone else's fears. Give yourself a chance to examine your thoughts. Change those that are negative. You are deserving.

  Louise Hay

  Believe, Giving, Negative

  FaceBook post by Louise Hay from Apr 22, 2016

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• Examine yourself to see whether you have within you a strong sense of your own self importance, or negatively, whether you have failed to realize that you are nothing. This feeling of self-importance is deeply hidden, but it controls the whole of our life. Its first demand is that everything should be as we wish it, and as soon as this is not so we complain to God and are annoyed with people.

  Theophan the Recluse

  Love, Life, God

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• A man's true greatness lies in the consciousness of an honest purpose in life, founded on a just estimate of himself and everything else, on frequent self-examinations, and a steady obedience to the rule which he knows to be right, without troubling himself about what others may think or say, or whether they do or do not that which he thinks and says and does.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Lying, Greatness, Men

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